Productive weekend!

Wow! What an incredible weekend I have had!

Although last week was my birthday (for which I was sick) it was also my Rummage Sale for Haiti!
It was such a success! I raised over $1,000 for my trip which will really help with start-up costs of fundraising. (Believe it or not, it costs quite a bit to fundraise! Haha.)

So with all of the junk sold and bought, we ended the night on a high note in the Richardson household. I had so much help from my friends and SO much encouragement from the community. It was awesome to get to watch how Christ used a simple situation as a Rummage Sale to further His name. I had quite a few chances to explain PPM, HCO and my passion in life for showing the love of Christ to a needy world. Although not everyone agreed with me, most were quick to take a prayer card and commit to pray for me while I'm gone.

I also finished my board and such for my table at church! My mom helped me and it looks so cute! Complete with prayer cards, HCO information cards, fundraising return envelopes and my "Envelope Fundraiser" (thanks Nathan Rogers) where people can pick up any dollar amount 1-100 and leave it anonomously. Just from Sunday morning I had six envelopes taken! What an encouragement. I'll post a picture of it soon.

I also just mailed out my Minister Packets complete with prayer cards, HCO information, fundraising return envelopes, return presentation cards and my informational DVD. *See below. So if you are a minister and you know me (or don't know me, haha!).. Be looking for those! ;)

My informational video. Please excuse the random face..

Thanks to Eric for working late into the night on Friday to get this put together so nicely.

Also, thanks to all of you who donated above and beyond this weekend at the Rummage Sale. It was awesome to watch the support roll in. Thank you!

I have begun fasting on a more regular basis due to how easily I am becoming stressed over the lack of understanding here in Cave City for international missions. Please keep the people of Cave City in your prayers, that they may open their eyes to a world in need of love of our Savior.

The Lord is growing me through this time in a way that was unexpected. I feel as if I am learning to trust Him in a more physical sense.. to provide time, money etc. than I always have for spiritual or emotional things. Thank You Lord for Your unending faithfulness to me, even when I don't trust You as I should.

My Mom Rocks.

There is something about my mother that has always inspired me and taken root in my very core since I was a young girl: The intensity and sincerity with which she loves her children. You may think.. "every mother loves their children.." and yes, this is true.. I am not putting my mother on a pedestal or saying she is the only mother who loves her children. However, this weekend it was just unreal to me the lengths to which my mother went to help me. 

As you all know, my trip to Haiti is quickly approaching and I am in a crazy mad dash to get prayer and financial support before January comes around. With this fundraising, it seems like I am always just a step or two behind.. missing a personal deadline, forgetting to stamp something or missing out on an opportunity.. the list goes on. And honestly, it can become quite stressful. Like every good mom, she of course calls me frequently, asking the normal questions and checking up on Eric and I. So on our call last week we decided she would come up and help me with the Rummage Sale I have coming up.
Little did I know just what that would require of her. After she came and went this weekend, I was reflecting on how helpful the amount of time she spent with me on Saturday helped me. She drove from Bryant to Cave City early Saturday morning (over 2 hours), picking up odds and ends that I had asked for. After some chit-chat, we went and spent around 2 hours moving boxes and such at our storage buildings (even-though she was having an allergy attack). Now, understand that this isn't an easy task even if you are feeling well... you are often lifting 30 lb boxes with your body contorted in all sorts of shapes. And even with my interjecting to "..Let me lift that!" She would always have some reason as to not let me: "you'll get dirty" "I'm already back here." "it's not that heavy.." When in reality, she was just looking out for me.. knowing that an injury I had in 10th grade sometimes causes me pain in my back. (something I can guarantee not many people give a second thought to).
After this, we went back home and I spent the next hour emptying my emotinal dump-truck on her.
It was then that she began taking on the never-ending task of brainstorming for fundraising ideas. After honestly over an hour of racking our brains, making lists and phone-calls.. she took a minute to fill me in on her week.
She had worked almost double that of a full-time job in the last week, had car trouble, been helping organize a baby shower for my sister-in-law, helping organize a wedding for my soon to be sister-in-law, and was not feeling well.. all the while working non-stop on helping me fund-raise for Haiti. (not to mention the countless other tasks that I am not even aware of). Talk about a reality check! I soon began realizing that this was no extra-ordinary week for her.. this is her normal. She is continually investing this much of herself into my life (and my brothers), putting herself on the back-burner. She is a beautiful example of a what I want to be as a mother.
Not only did the Lord use her this weekend to help me emotionally and physically, He used her to show me some things spiritually as well. After spending some time in prayer thanking the Lord for my mother and her heart of compassion, asking forgiveness for not reciprocating the time she invests in me, asking for the Lord to give me her intensity of love for my children one day and asking for blessings upon her life for the example she is to me...  I glimpsed just a fraction of how much Christ loves us. I mean, I know that He loves me.. but I think a lot of the time I look over the small things He does in my life.. and how much He sacrificed and the lengths He went to take care of me and to show how much He loves me... just like how I looked over how much my mother sacrificed to take care of me this weekend. The way He always "picks up the phone" when I need Him most, how He quietly listens to me everyday as I unload on Him my "problems," not thanking Him enough for all He does for me and how He teaches me the most in ways I'm not expecting.

So even though this post isn't directly related to Haiti.. I just wanted to share this with all of you.

Thank you Lord for loving me so much that you sent your Son to die in my place, for everything You do for me and for my mother and the example of sacrifice she is to me.

Thank you mom, for everything you are. I love you.