Trash & Treasures

Honestly?  We hate garage sales.  With the fiery passion of a thousand hot burning suns.  We get offended when people don't want to own our stuff (what do you mean you don't want a souvenir glass from our trip to the Rain Forest Cafe in Atlantic City?), and neither of us is very good at haggling.

Justin:  What do you mean you won't pay $10 for this slightly chipped and very stained serving dish?  

Tara:  Here let me pay YOU to take this all of this clutter away from me! 

We find ourselves falling into these two extremes with very little consideration for a middle ground.

So when our friend suggested that we hold a garage sale fundraiser as a way to raise money for our massive and ever-growing adoption fees, we balked at the idea.  But after we gave it some thought, we realized that holding a garage sale fundraiser would allow Jenny's life to touch entirely new demographics of people.

And ultimately, that's what this journey is all about.

First there were our friends who wanted to be a blessing to us, but perhaps couldn't necessarily make a monetary donation toward our Family Sponsorship Page.  By hosting a sale where they could donate their gently loved items, it allowed them to contribute in a very meaningful way to our fundraising efforts.

An overflowing garage = overflowing hearts.

We can't express our thanks enough to those who donated to the sale.  Our garage was overflowing with the outpouring of donations.  Each and every item that was dropped off held meaning to us.  It had been loved once and would hopefully be loved again.  These things, used and loved and ultimately discarded, would mean life and hope for someone new.  Perhaps for the person who bought it at our garage sale, but mostly for Jenny, who sits, herself discarded, in an eastern European group home for sick children.  

Then there were the complete strangers who came to the sale.  Those from our community whom we had never met before, many of them asking for details on the adoption, on Jenny, and giving their own words of encouragement.  One shopper told stories of how she had once been a foster parent, and another recalled early memories of having lived in an orphanage himself until he was 3.

My favorite was an older lady who was rummaging through the boys' clothes and said she was going to be sending them to a young man in [Jenny's country].  My jaw dropped and I pointed to the picture of Jenny and explained the fundraiser.  We exchanged a few words in Jenny's native language, excited to get a chance to practice with an expert!

Another life touched by Jenny.

They say one man's trash is another man's treasure.   This was true for the items donated to our garage sale, but how much more true is it of our hearts when it comes to what God treasures?  Isn't Jenny treasured by God?  While we cannot fathom the difficult decision her parents made when they signed away their parental rights, we do know that she is loved and she is precious to God and to us.

1 Peter 2:4 says that Jesus was "rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious to him."  He is our true treasure, chosen and precious, and all too often, we treat him as less than so.   The perfect Savior of the world, despised and rejected by us as if he were broken, worthless and ready for the rubbish bin.

What is your treasure?  "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."  (Luke 12:34)  Right now, as parents, of course our hearts are with Vivien and Jenny.  We treasure them, but (and this might come as a shock to you just as it did to us) even our children shouldn't hold the highest place in our hearts.  No, that place should belong to God and Jesus himself.  I'm not saying it always does for us.  On the contrary, it's something we need to constantly remind ourselves, every hour of every day.  But if there's one thing we're learning on this parenting and adoption journey, it's that HE should become greater, and everything else should become less.  For HE is our TREASURE.