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Hope everyone is having a great week. As you all know Kristina and her sister will be going to Africa in August to help spread the word of God to a group of orphans that need to learn of his love.  Fund raising is going well but we still need your help. So instead of that cup of Starbucks or that late night Taco Bell run help out by clicking the donate button and give what you can. Thanks in advance for your help and prayers. Give

Yard Sale Fundraising

"O give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name. Make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; speak of all His wonders...Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done." - 1 Chronicles 16:8-12

This has been my verse I have been reading this week to remind myself of all that God has done for us this past week, not only of the success of our yard sale but just in giving me the strength to get through it. 


First of all I want to again say thank you to everyone who emailed us, called us, tracked us down to give us donations for the yard sale. It was a tremendous amount of support and we are just so humbled by all of the donations. So much so that, at first, I was a little disappointed in our yard sale because we just had so much stuff still leftover. But I want to say that God is faithful and we are so blessed that we were able to raise about $637.75 over the two-day sale. 

At first I thought it was almost $700 ($687.75 to be exact), but my mom brought $50 to be able to make change and be sure we had enough ones, fives, and quarters. I didn't realize that she didn't take that back when she left. So anyway, we are happy with what we made, plus my mom decided to donate that $50 so that still brings our total to $687.75. Also, I just sold another item leftover from the yard sale for $35, so that brings our total to $722.75. Since I am splitting what I made from the garage sale with my sister, that means we each made $361.37 to put into our fundraising accounts.

I also want to say thank you so much to my mom, dad, sister, nephew, and even my 80 year-old aunt who came out to help me during the two-day sale. My sister and I spent all day Thursday continuing to sort through all of the donations, and I think it pretty much took us until Midnight to finish getting everything ready for the sale. Then she spent the night because Jeremy was working that day and on Friday as well. So she was there getting up with me at 6 a.m. to get everything out for the sale. Jeremy was only able to be home during the sale for a few hours because of work and his soccer photography, so that is what I mean by God giving me the strength to get through all of it. 


Here is a photo of my nephew, Seth, and Reece the night before the sale. We had worn them out with all the sorting! They are good pretenders! Haha!!

We got pretty busy with the yard sale, so I forgot to take many photos. I had one of Jadon and Seth. They had made signs and were waving at cars going by trying to entice them to stop at our yard sale. However, somehow it got deleted off our camera. But here is a shot of all the toys we were selling in the yard sale.

And here is one of us almost ready to open for the sale. 

I also have several items that I am still trying to sell on Craigslist and my sister, who has an eBay business, is trying to sell a lot of the nicer donations on eBay as well. So please keep praying for those items to sell as well. We could possibly make another $200 or more on those things if we could just sell them. 



To update you on our other fundraiser, Jeremy's soccer photography, he has been working so diligently but it is definitely paying off. He was able to move over $200 a few days ago that he had made from selling the photos, but then this week he told me he's already made another $200! So I am so amazed by this!! And then my sister and I both received a donation of $100, so God is really moving in our fundraising efforts.


In case you are lost (because I almost am), I am so happy to say our grand total for the amount I have raised so far for my account is $1611.37!! If I did the math correct, my sister has also raised about $711 so far as well. This does include the $250 deposit we had to pay, but we are still just amazed we are doing so well when about a month ago we really had not raised hardly anything!! God is good!!


That being said, I want to remind everyone that we still have a long way to go since each trip is $4300 per person. We really haven't received very many straight financial donations, but we are so hopeful we will start seeing some of those kinds of donations come in as well. There honestly is no amount that is too small. I mean if 400 people could only give $5 each, that would raise $2,000!!


So please pray about it and if you feel led, you can go to our church website to make a financial contribution. All you need to do is go to www.rushcreek.org. Then you click on the giving tab and fill out a form to be able to donate financially. If you click on the "other" tab you can fill in the box "chesnutt mission trip" or "Williams mission trip" (that is my sister's last name. 


As always, please keep praying for us through this whole endeavor. Your prayers really lift us up!


I will leave you with another verse. No matter how long it takes us to raise this money for both my sister and I , I will not lose heart because I know its for God's glory we are doing this!

"Therefore, I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is for your glory." - Ephesians 3:13

Yard Sale Approaches

"Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."  -Jeremiah 33:3

This really is my verse of the past week and a half as God has really been showing us He does answer prayers if we would just call out to Him and trust Him and His timing. This is going to be kind of short post (I know, a post from me that is short?) as I mostly just wanted to update everyone on all of the amazing things that have happened since my last post. 

After sending out some more emails about the yard sale we are having to raise money for my sister and I to go to Africa, people just really started reaching out to us to make donations for our sale. So much so that my garage is now so overflowing and we are still going through all of the donations! That is so amazing considering we had just had a few families donate to our sale when I last posted. 

Here is a few photos for you to see what I am talking about. 

Just a few of the clothes we received that we decided to hang up.

We also received strollers (as you can see the double here), booster seats, infant car seats, a tote full of helmets and rollerblades.

I am just in awe of all the families that have reached out to us and want to help support our mission. For those of you who have donated, we are so humbly grateful. For those of you who are praying for our yard sale, the prayers can be felt. I continue to just feel a peace from God through all of this, even though it has been incredibly stressful and hectic to put all of this together. 

I want to put a few details about the actual yard sale for all of my local friends who may want to come out to support us. Feel free to pass this link along to anyone who may want to come support us. 

The sale is at 4511 Fox Meadows Lane, Mansfield, TX. It will be from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. both Friday and Saturday, May 4 and May 5. We have lots and lots of clothing some of it really nice!! There is such a variety of sizes of the clothing, boys and girls, men and women, and lots and lots of shoes. We also have televisions, printers, a DVD player, phones, speakers, other electronics, lots of baby, toddler and kid toys, toddler ride-ons, scooters, roller blades, helmets, a train table, a lot of bedding, and much more. Also, we have two infant car seats in good condition (one is only 2 years old) and a stroller travel system that goes with it. We also have several booster seats and strollers and baby items. We will also have some furniture, including an entertainment center and a loveseat. 

That is it for today's update. So please, please, please keep praying for us that we have a good turn out for our sale and we raise some good money for our trip. Next time I can't wait to update you on how everything went!!

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do and your plans will succeed." -Proverbs 16:3