camp shirts, garage sale, cool god stories!

To say that we have the most amazing and supportive friends and family members on the planet would be the understatement of the year. This whole adoption process has been a very humbling one. Never before have we had to ask for such help. But more than that, God is teaching me so much through this. The story of Camp isn't about us, it's about God and His mighty plan. It's about everyone being called to be a part of "taking care of orphans" as it says in James 1:27. Everyone has their gifts and it's been so fun to see everyone really get involved and be a part. That's amazing to me - that everyone can be a part of this amazing story.

Two-ish months ago some girl friends & I went to a women's night of worship at our church. Before we headed up there, we had pizza at my friend Sommer's house and so the brainstorming began. I was completely blown away by the fact that they had all been talking about ways they could help us! We decided that night for sure that we were going to have a community garage sale. People could donate, help work, help set up, help get the word out - and all the proceeds would go to our adoption costs. Amazing, right? That night at worship God really spoke to me and later at church that Sunday the verse from James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." He was starting to whisper in my ear...Wynne, I know this has been hard but I am going to bless you. Consider it joy! These trials you are going through are putting you closer to me. WOW! Thank you Lord. We do feel amazingly blessed and honored to be walking down the road the building our family through adoption - even though it's not always easy, or maybe not what we had "planned" all along. It's what God has for us and during this wait time we are going to use it to grow closer to him! Ok sorry...back to business.

Here are the details about the garage sale:

• Friday & Saturday April 15th and 16th
• Elder's house (if you are in Midland & want to help and don't know my address- email me & I'll give it to you - wynne{dot}elder {at} gmail {dot} com )
• We don't have the exact times yet, but I'll keep you posted
• If you want to drop things off - we are having a drop off THIS Sunday from 1-3pm once again at our casa.
• If you want to help - I'll give more details later, but the week before we will be tagging, setting up probably a little bit all week & we'd love for you to come by!

I have another really cool God story to go with all of this. The money part of adoption is a lot - and we are so very thankful to people who have already provided for us. We know and believe that God will provide the money and honestly, I have been expecting Him to just mail us a check. Well, to put it on some one's heart to mail us a check. a big one. I just knew it, I felt it, I believed it and know that God is who he says he is and he will provide. I would literally go to the mailbox so very often just expecting something to be there. Because of the garage sale & the T-shirts (ahhhh info below!) we really wanted to start a separate account to put all the money. To be accountable to the money people give us and to know where we stand with our fundraising. So - I had a check from a friend (thank you!!) and went to the bank to open the account. My banker friend, Kenny, helped me this day and well he's from Africa. Kenya to be exact and every time he's helped us I've wanted to talk to him about Africa but haven't. This time, since he helped me set up my account I had to. WOW! God is cool - first off, he's a believer and also he has all these connections to people there, people in Midland that are/were missionaries there, a good friend of his was adopted as a baby from Ethiopia and now lives in Midland and has a family of his own. He's trying to set us all up to go to lunch. Isn't God cool? {He also told me that every time I come in I have something on me that's "Africa" and it's true! I like to say it's my "African style" and it made me really want to do a series of blog posts about awesome clothes/jewelry you can buy from Africa that will support women there - so more on that later!} He told me that I had to have at least $300 in the account at all times or we'd have to pay a monthly fee. Ok...I didn't have that in there yet. So I went straight home and guess what? God put it on the hearts of some unbelievable friends of ours to send us a check. a big one. One that would help us cover that $300 no problem. We believed, we knew He would provide and He did. We are so thankful for people answering His call to help in whatever way they can. This is the BODY of Christ and we all have our gifts & blessings. What a JOY it is to bless others with what God has given us. We are eternally grateful.

OK, OK - onto the SHIRTS!!!!!!!!

So I had this great idea this year that I wanted to make t-shirts to help raise money, awareness, support of our sweet Camp and his story. I was doodling one day and really wanted to do a "vintage summer camp" theme with the shirts. I called up my friend Joel @ HOle in the Roof in Waco (website here) and he helped me make my dream a reality! So these are for our sweet Camp - I really wanted to get them before our PHOTO SESSION with my good friend Jenn at Bend the Light. We did & had so much fun taking photos in them :) Check out the blog post here!

Meet my "I love Camp" models - Shannon & Curtis :)

They were so sweet to model the shirts for us so you can see!

• They are American Apparel - Sustainable Edition, they are a vintage creme shirt with orange and navy writing.
• They are the same sizes for men & women - They do shrink a little bit.
• I have Small, Medium, Large, and a few XL
• {FYI - Shannon & I both have on Mediums, Curtis has a Large, and Stephen an XL}
• They are $25 each and if you are out of town and need me to ship it to you, it's $30.
• If you are going to see me somewhere out of town in the next few weeks & want me to bring it to you that works too!
• You can make a check to Wynne Elder or cash is great.

If you come to drop off for garage sale this Sunday I will have them - otherwise, email/text me and I'll see if I have your size. I will probably have to do a re-order, so if you want one soon - let me know :) Until you pay me I can't hold it. I'll have them at my house & try to keep a few in my car as well. 100% of proceeds will go into our adoption fund!

Images below, but you can also check them out on my photography blog here:

http://wynneelderphotographyblog.com/?p=1149