Wow! That is the best way to sum up a truly incredible weekend! For all of you readers, friends and family... the yard sale was a HUGE success! I can ONLY give credit to my awesome God! He was there and evident in more ways than one! Guys... just a heads up... this is going to be a long email! I have so many people to thank and so much to tell you about! So, please please please read and hear how awesome our God is!
For the past 2 months now, we have been planning this yard sale. Its been hard core! My original fear was that no one would donate items and it would turn into a simple ole' yard sale. Boy was I wrong, and WAY wrong! We had donations given nearly every day! It was crazy! There is no way to explain to the response that we received from so many. Hundreds of you gave so generously to our sale and helped us to raise the money needed to bring our baby home. I can't explain what I'm feeling at this point. For the last couple of weeks, I have been an emotional basket case. My feeling are all over the place and to a point of being hard to describe. I can't pinpoint what I'm feeling to be perfectly honest. We had so many helping us spread the word through flyers, facebook status' and spreading the word to people at work! We had tons of you who came out to shop and see what all of the fuss was about. It was unbelievable.
In the days leading up to the sale... I started feeling overwhelmed. Feeling as though I had taken on more than I could handle. But through the encouragement of so many, and the help from all of our friends and family... we made it through the storm. I know that God will never give us more than we can handle, and unfortunately, I started to doubt that. But, I stood strong (as strong as I could) and we fought the "battle"!
We spent most of Thursday and ALL DAY Friday unloading from our storage unit and putting everything into our studio. We sorted, organized and priced. It was unreal how many things we had collected. The studio was beyond packed and full with no room left. But even on Friday, donations were still flooding in! Thank you Lord! I never dreamed the yard sale would have turned out the way it did, but I'm so thankful. Friday evening rolled around and because we had so much crammed into our little space, we had to move a good bit outside. Because of that, my husband and my dad decided to spend the night and take guard! haha Poor guys! We all arrived back early Saturday morning (4:30am to be exact) and continued moving things outside. We put up a few tents because there was a high chance of rain. Booo. But despite those fears, we moved on with the sale!
A good friend of mine in the wedding business, Dave Gilbert came out and generously took pictures for us. He showed up early and managed to get a group shot of us with everyone who helped the morning of. I am so thankful to have these images! Thank you Dave for giving so generously to us. Pictures and the documentation of our journey is so priceless to me.
So... even though the shots below have my "©Brantley Freeman 2010" logo on them... that is simply for my blog, that doesn't mean I took them. Hopefully there is no confusion there. Dave Gilbert took all but the shot inside of our studio. :) Here it is... the BEFORE shot.
The rest of the day was perfect. We had everything set out on on tables and everything worked out beautifully. To show just how in control God is, and NOT us... the rain held out until exactly 12:01pm. Just for the record, the sale officially ended at 12-noon. Now you can't possibly tell me that wasn't Him! We have been truly blessed in more ways than one! Here are some more shots from the day!
This was our crew who helped us out the day of, and most of them even helped out leading up to the actual yard sale day! We're forever grateful to each of you!
(JK, Jim, Martha, Becky, Holly, Brantley, Katie, Wanda, Kim and Richard)
Here are some of the details. Obviously, our t-shirts were there for sale. We also made some larger signs telling everyone about us and our story. Plus, some donation cards and little signs stating everything was donated by friends and family.
We even had a past bride and her family come out and organize a lemonade stand. They made yellow lemonade and pink lemonade! We also sold cookies that a sweet friend, April made. Another friend ended up bringing cookies the day of, so thanks Amber! Between lemonade & goodies, we made a total of $125!!!
A couple of my Radius girls! Mrs. Keesey and Holly!
This one below is for you Mr. Dan! As promised, I said I'd get a picture taken with the famous ceramic pitcher if it sold! Well, it did! So, here you go! ;)
Alright.... for the part everyone has been waiting for! Remember a while back, we mentioned our goal was $1,000. Well, after much talk and deliberation, we changed our goal to $2,000! The day of, I was a little scared. I thought, oh now, now I'm going to get my hopes up if we don't meet our goal. I should have just left it at $1,000 and be happy if we exceeded it. Well.... God was more than faithful and not only did we exceed the initial goal, but we exceeded the second goal of $2,000!
Drum roll everyone!!!! We made a total of $2,565.00!!!!! God is AWESOME!
Not only is that total more than our goal, but it was so evident that God was there with us that day. I feel so blessed to be walking in these shoes right now and know without a doubt in my mind, that is the path He has laid out for us. :) Its so comforting and Saturday was just one more reminder of that. Thank you once again to each of you who helped us along the way, by praying for us, donating your items, coming out and shopping, unloading, selling and even praying for us! This has been an unbelievable experience and I can't wait to continue down this beautiful journey! One day, and one day soon we will meet our baby! And thanks to each of you, we're now one step closer to doing just that!
We are now officially 1/2 way there. Bringing our grand total to exactly $10,000, with the 10 more to go. Whew. As crazy as that number seems, I know without a doubt, it is possible and with Christ, it can happen! Please continue to pray for us!
Until then, Brantley
