God's garage sale...

I just need to share the amazing event that occurred this week.  I am calling it God's garage sale, because quite frankly, I have done garage sales and I kid you not, I have gone into debt paying for my add in the paper and not even made enough to cover the add!  BUT GOD...

^{Psalm 66:5} Come and see what God has done,
       how awesome his works in man's behalf!

and yes that is a sneak peek of our baby girl, and the words on the bottom say "Bring our friend home!!"  How cute is that?

This is Brendan, (Lee's son,) and below is Abigal, (Charity's daughter) and Lexi Beth (Lee's daughter) or "Lexi Death" as Anaya calls her.  Missing are Max (Charity's son,) and Gabi (Lee's daughter) who sold lemonade and cookies.  These kids were amazing, they made $50.00 for Luisa through their sales alone!!! 

This is Abigal our big helper, holding her cousin, baby Ryan, he is the sweetest little thing and I am in LOVE with him.  Truly, I cannot keep my hands and lips off of the poor thing, but he still smiles with every part of his body when I talk to him, so I think he likes me too!!

My God given gift in human form friend Lee (on the left below) decided to hold a garage sale and give the proceeds to us for our adoption of Luisa.  She posted about it on facebook about 2 weeks ago, and asked if anyone else wanted to bring things to donate.  You would not believe the response we had.  It was amazing the amount of stuff that was dropped of, many really nice things people parted with in order to help us bring our daughter home.  Then there was my friend Charity(on the right), who came early and helped set up, and sell both days!  We could not have done it without her!  I wish I had a picture of Karen (Lee and Charity's mother in law love) who graciously allowed us to use her garage and helped so much, and Laurie who came to help set up, and ALL of the amazing friends who contributed so much to our cause.  I was brought to tears several times because of the generosity of our friends and complete strangers.  We were able to have many great conversations, tears and hugs with complete strangers about adoption and faith, we were all touched by this sale!

Would you believe that God gave us just shy of $2,700.00!!!!  I seriously was crying the first day when I ran some of the money inside because our box was overflowing and realized we may make $1,000.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that we could make that much.  EVER. at a garage sale.  Then a mere 2 hours later we closed up shop and I counted the money, I had the shock of my life when I found several $100 bills that were not in there before, and I knew we didn't have any 'big ticket' items.  We priced to sell the mass quantities and it worked!  So, I know that someone gave us a VERY large donation, however no one will "fess up"  so: to whom it may concern..."Thank you, you are truly helping to save a life and we are incredibly grateful!"  We want to thank ALL of you who had a part, no matter how big or small.  Our next fee is now covered and we are so blessed by the way God's people have reached out and helped us to pay the "ransom" for our daughter!  Thanks so much for loving us in this way!

"1 John 3:18...let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."