Adoption Garage Sale

I realize as I'm writing this that even though the garage sale was only two weeks ago, we have come SO FAR in our adoption process. In the day to day it seems like nothing is getting done, but we have talked to so many people, researched so many countries, researched/called/called again so many placement agencies, home study agencies... wow. My head is overwhelmed just thinking about all of it! I will have to write a post this week specifically updating everyone on the adoption process, but for now, let's just talk garage sale fundraising.

Our sale went AMAZINGly (I wanted to write AMAZING, but that is just not proper grammar, so I had to add the -ly). The forecasted rain held off, the weather was beautiful, tons of people showed up, and God was apparent in all of it.

Signs, signs, signs!

You're only seeing about half of the pile we had to transfer from our house to the garage sale site... eek!

For sale!

We even had tarps full of stuff on the yard!

Looks like rain, right? :)

Just what I like to see! :)

All in all, we made a little over $1700 dollars from the sale, and we have numerous "big" things to sell on Craig's List now- enough to fund our home study! So we are going to start our home study (a home study is when a licensed agency comes into your home, educates you on the adoption process, and interviews you and your family to give you a license to adopt... basically, they say we are going to be a good adoptive family) ASAP!

However, way more valuable than the money were the stories we got to hear from all of these unknown people. We heard from people who had adopted children and about how their families grew. We heard from people who had been adopted themselves, and how their lives changed. We heard from people whose siblings had been adopted. We even heard from one beautiful woman who gave her daughter up for adoption fifteen years ago. We were so blessed by their willingness to share their stories, and we got to see how prevalent and affective adoption is even in our community. I was so honored to hear what they had to say. The fact that we raised money for our home study was just extra awesome-ness to the event. :)