Overwhelmed

I saw this license plate on a car at a house I inspected Monday morning -- before any of the blessing started to fall down. I'm sure it was a reminder for me.

I am overwhelmed, to put it mildly, at all the blessings we have been showered with just in the last 24 hours.

Five minutes after posting my previous post about how God will provide, He did. My phone rang. I looked at the Caller ID and noted it was one of the companies I work for. I knew I had a late job with them and figured it was them calling to ask me about it. I answered and heard Rob on the phone and I KNEW he was checking on the job. I told him it was right beside me and I would work on it next and fax it to him. He then said, "I have State Farm work." NOW, most of you don't have a CLUE what this means. I, however, did. My favorite work to do is State Farm project work. The inspections are plentiful and you can make a nice sum of money in a short period of time. Don't get me wrong; it's hard work. You start inspecting at 8:00 in the morning and work until 6:00 at night. You inspect as many houses as you can in a day (usually, for me, 75-125/day). You do this in a city that is not your home, usually when it's hot. You have to work whatever the weather (including rain) and you have to do it for a minimum of 5 days in a row. For this project, it will be at least 10 days -- not in a row -- but 10 days. I've never taken on a project this big by myself. My friend Susan always goes with me. This time I'm on my own. I will do a little over 750 jobs. It will provide EXACTLY the amount of money we didn't have to pay the agency and country fees. Do you see? God sold some cattle!!!!

Prior to all this happening, I had sent an email to several friends updating them on our decision to change countries, our financial situation and asking them for help in getting documents for our new dossier and help with our yard sale. I cannot TELL you how many offers of help I got in MINUTES. I have someone who will write my employment letter (since I'm self-employed it requires a CPA letter), someone to notarize documents, someone to get my police clearance letters, many "someones" who have offered to wash tubs of clothes for the yard sale, offers to help sort through the storage building and price things, offers for boxes to pack things up from the house, offers of items for the yard sale and offers to do "whatever" (my favorite ones). HUGE thank you's go to Dianne, Dawn, Iris, Jennifer, Sharon, Susan, Stoney, Lisa and Michelle for all their offers of help.

Later in the day, I sent out an email to some other folks, telling them of a magazine fundraiser we have set up online. Click here to go to the page that will allow you to order magazines at a discount while providing proceeds for our adoption. My dear friend, Diane, in Atlanta, shared this with all her online friends. WOW! What a simple gesture that could mean so much in our efforts to bring home ELLIE!!!

Just an added note: ELLIE could already be born. Would you say a prayer for her today? Ask God to keep her safe and healthy wherever she is. Ask God to provide peace to the mother who felt the need to give her up in order to provide a better life for her. Ask God to prepare her heart and ours that we will be the family for each other that we need. Thank God for His eternal goodness in putting the desire for her in our hearts and for providing a way for us to get her. Ask God to bless you for helping us -- we do this every day; we thank God for YOU.

So, we all are overwhelmed. In more ways than one -- in blessings, in opportunity, and in WORK!!! I will leave Monday to go to Columbia, SC for a week. I will return and we will drive to Ohio with Kevin's mom to see Steve and Angie and the girls who just returned from three years in Germany. We have missed them SO MUCH!! and look forward to seeing them again. When we return, I'll have a few days at home before leaving the following week to go BACK to SC to finish the project week. The following week we will have our yard sale. WHEW!!! In the midst of this, we are trying to gather items for this yard sale by clearing out the house. We have managed to gather too much clutter in our house and in order to ready ourselves for a baby, much of it has to go. We are overwhelmed, to say the least. But we know God will give us strength and that our friends will give us help. What more can we ask for?

I read this on another blog yesterday:

Be assured that if God waits longer than you wish, it is only to make the blessing all the more precious." Unknown