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So let me explain, after working with my new friend Amanda in our mutual friends new kitchen and living room(we were a perfect match), God placed an idea in my heart on another way to help this family. I drove home from helping ,walked into my house with the idea on my mind and I immediately shared it with Bill who was in the back hall...he instantly said "Yes, I am on board to help however I can." I went to my computer and sent Amanda a facebook message to see if she would help...you see, I had never had a garage sale in my life! I have been to a few, helped my in laws with a few but other than that had never tried it on my own. As soon as she said yes I got to work finding at least 4 other ladies who would agree to help. As I thought they would, they all said yes. I then went to my friend and asked her if she was up for the task of really clearing out her stuff and having a garage sale with all proceeds going to her. She agreed, but as you can imagine she was a little bit concerned on how we could pull it all off in less than two weeks. Knowing that God was in control and that this idea was from him I was ready to go full steam ahead. Amanda helped orchestrate the details because she is a guru with this sort of thing and then we all got to work. We all went to our friends house on different days to help her sort and purge. We loaded up our cars with the items she was ready to part with and brought them to my garage. We all started asking friends for donations of items to sell in the sale and then we started mentioning it on facebook. Within a few days we had items showing up at my house to sell, people offering to donate things for a bake sale and lots of people who said they would pray. By Thursday of last week my garage was full! On Friday night just as we thought we had it all under control we got several more loads of items from friends who wanted to help. It was overwhelming to say the least but after a wonderful meal prepared by my amazing husband and his mom we were ready to tackle the items and get the sale totally ready to go for 6 AM the next morning. There was an army of people who helped but by 11 there were three of us left working...we were almost ready for business. I think I got in bed around 1:15 and the alarm went off at 4:12! I made the coffee, wrote a few quick emails to remind friends about the sale and posted it on facebook. At 4:42 Amanda arrived and we were off and running...I do not think I sat down again until 4pm when we were eating dinner counting the funds that were raised. So many neat things happened during the sale...people who heard the story as to why we were having such a HUGE garage sale just opened their wallets and gave us cash, no one bickered with price and we even heard several say lets keep looking...at checkout people who were owed money back would say keep the change and some even paid more for their items than we were asking for! As the sale came to a close we knew God had worked a miracle. We had exceeded our original goal by 50%!!!! In the end we were able to bless a family in need and we were able to carry out God's plan for all us which is to serve people. My heart is forever imprinted by this whole experience. Working alongside my entire family to make this happen has given me a new appreciation for who each of them is and has given me a glimpse of the love they have to share. I am tired, but it a good tired.
I can't believe it, but I never took one picture of the before and during phases of the sale...I did manage to take a few after shots as the stuff sits and waits for CCA to come pick it up tomorrow and the baby items get donated to a friend who runs a ministry alongside a pregnancy center.
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