Sincere apologies for neglecting to update this blog in a MONTH! The month of May is like a raging river in the realm of the home school Mom. I have decided it is the craziest month of the entire year with Band Concerts, Dance recitals, Piano recitals, Homeschool conventions, Tutor Training, etc, etc, etc. It rushes by like a blast of wind and the next thing you know it’s June! So, here we are…June.
Regarding our paperwork progress, we finally received the LONG awaited (7 ½ weeks) Immigration approval to adopt internationally!!! The i600a became the I-171H and arrived in our mailbox on June 2nd!!!! I literally jumped up and down as I showed each and every family member our letter!! I felt like Tigger! We are now awaiting a few more documents to complete our “dossier” (the packet of paperwork which will go to Ukraine)! We would LOVE to get it sent in the next few weeks- please join us in prayer for that!
Regarding our fundraising:
I wrote this on May 9, 2012, after our second Garage sale which was on May 4 & 5: If you are short on time, please don’t miss “Our Biggest Miracle: Beds For Sale”- It is awesome!!!
Yet Another Astonishing Garage Sale
God brought amazing helpers, sweet, sweet shoppers and delicious food. He IS the defender of the Fatherless, after all, so we shouldn’t be surprised that He is at work to get our boy home! If any of you are looking on & following our adventure and thinking, “I would love to do that…. but I couldn’t.” Well, we can’t either, but God can. It has been unbelievably exhilarating to get “out of the boat and walk on water” and watch Him work miracles to unite this little boy with us, his family. It is a scary leap of faith, but with God all things are possible!
Please accept my apologies for the delay in updating this blog. First I’d like to thank our gracious hosts, Greg and Kathy H. They allowed our “stuff” to take over their garage for a week, allowed workers and their kids open access to their home for three days. Kathy was in it through thick and thin, just like Rebecca the weekend prior, and assisted me tirelessly for three straight LONG, HOT days. She remarked that it was much like a mission trip, and she would know after two mission trips to Haiti. At least we didn’t have to sleep in tents with tarantulas! In addition to Kathy, my other Home school Mom friends, Tricia, Jinger, Kelly S., Cheryl, Jenny, Suzanne, Roseanne, Shannon H & Shannon M., Kathy & Sherry P helped in every aspect of our sale from sorting, pricing, making signs, placing signs, selling and even buying some for themselves!:) It was HARD, it was HOT, things were HEAVY and we were all tired, but through it all we made memories to last a lifetime. These Ladies gave sacrificially of their time and energy, which is just as much of a gift to us, if not more so, than financial support. We single income home school families may be broke, but we’ll make up for it in love and care for one another!:) If any of you home school and need to find a community of like-minded Moms and kids to “do life” with…find a Classical Conversations group near you. You won’t be sorryJ
Our amazing God encounters:
Food: A dear sweet friend, Cheryl, from our home school group brought LUNCH for us, not once but twice, just out of the kindness of her heart! That was AMAZING! And delicious! Thank you Cheryl!!
New Friends: So many precious people came by our Yard sale, to wish us well, round up their sale or just hand us money and generally encourage us!! One man, tattooed and a bit scary looking quite honestly, came up, handed me money, said, “Tell V., ‘Welcome to America!’, and walked away. He nearly made me cry. So many people rounded up their sale or after looking around when they didn’t find anything they really wanted they handed me money anyway. It was an amazing demonstration of the kindness of strangers yet again. I was moved to tears several times. We honestly didn’t expect to do as well this weekend because the area is not as affluent as the area we were in last weekend. But, we did even better!:) Have you ever noticed that those who have the least sometimes give the most?
Russian adopted kids: Nearing the end of our third day, as we were packing it all up, a family with four children pulled up. It turned out that the adult with them was their Aunt who was keeping the kids for her sister. Three of the kids who were with her were adopted from Russia!!! The oldest daughter, ~17?, gave me her email address and offered to help us translate when we get V. home! What a blessing!
Musical talent: A young man shopping seemed interested in “our story” and shared with me that his sister had adopted several kids and home schools her kids, too. In addition, he is a performer at Disney in one of our FAVORITE bands! My husband will be SO jealous that I met him and he didn’t! My hilarious friends and I agreed we should go hear him play and scream from the back, “HIIIII!!!!!! Remember us from the YARD SALE?!!??!” We have entirely too much fun!!
Our Biggest Miracle- “Beds for Sale”: At about 1 pm on Saturday, when Kathy and I were having dreamy thoughts of being finished for the weekend, a friend of hers decided to donate a twin bed with frame, headboard, mattress and box springs. While we are honored that a stranger to us would donate such a great item, Kathy and I were SOO hot, and SOOOO tired. Furniture had not sold well all weekend, not even a hint of a buyer for the desks and bookshelves we’d shoved and lugged all over. So the thought of MORE huge furniture to move in our exhausted state didn’t thrill us. I requested they wait until my husband could pick up the bed later in the week for our next yard sale, but they just wanted to get it out of their garage. So our generous donor rented a U Haul and pulled up out front. As he started to unload the first piece, he said, “If anyone buys this in the next 5 minutes, I’ll deliver!” So Kathy said, “Please, God, send a buyer for the beds!” And I looked to the sky and repeated her plea. I walked back over toward the toy area, where sales had slowed, and said, “Too bad we only have two shoppers now...” Then, I spun around, spotted a young man with tattoos behind me and said jokingly, “You don’t want to buy a bed, do you?” And he said, “Where are they? I’ll take a look!” And he BOUGHT THE BED!!!! WOW!!! YAY GOD!!!! About an hour later he returned with his sweet wife, who handed me more money and told me how excited she was for us. She also shared that she had just been telling her husband that they needed a twin bed in their spare room. And here they got it….delivered and all!:)
It was an amazing weekend and I am so grateful that God has taken us down this often difficult path in order to watch Him work miracles!!
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