This Is What Happens....

...when you think God wants you to do something, and you don't say, "No, I'm not very good at that," or "No, that seems like it will take a lot of time," or "No, I don't really feel like it," or "No, my husband will think I'm crazy." (He already does, and that's okay.)
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This is what happens when you say "Yes." No excuses. No questions. Just "Yes."
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The little nudge I felt to sew dresses for Haitian girls with my mom has turned into
- 50+ yards of donated fabric with more coming
- financial donations to cover more fabric and shipping
- Two dozen women offering to help in some way
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Though sewing dresses seems like such a little thing as far as giving goes, the thought was somewhat overwhelming at first. 100 dresses seemed like a lot. Now it not only seems doable, it even looks surpassable.
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That is what I love about the God I serve. He likes to take our little victories in obedience and turn them into more than we imagined.
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100 dresses (or more) here we come.

The Last Harms Superhero

Do you suppose he's flying in his sleep?

She Floats

We took a very short trip on the water at Big Creek. Corey's hoping to take the boys on an overnight canoe trip in a couple weeks.

A Hundred Dresses

I believe that God sometimes uses the occurances in our daily routine of life to prompt us to do things we wouldn't necessarily choose on our own. And I believe he did that to me last week.

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Occurance #1 - a meeting with an aquaintance (now that I've had coffee with her and spent a morning with her, I'm going to call her my friend) from college who is in the process of adopting 3 (yes 3) children from the Congo.

Occurence #2 - an afternoon of sewing new curtains for Lewis' room.

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These two things may seem totally unrelated, but God fused them together and used them to put an idea in my mind. That idea is to sew dresses for little girls in Haiti. The number that is stuck in my mind - 100.

You see, I have recently been reminded more and more of my many material blessings, and I have been reminded that God doesn't want me to be a "blessing hoarder." So, what does he want me to do with my blessings? Well, there is this stirring deep inside of me to go get an orphaned child, and bring him/her home to love, but Corey and I are not at that place right now. That doesn't mean, however, that I'm off the hook when it comes to using my resources to care for them. Have you ever noticed how many times in the Bible taking care of orphans is mentioned? A lot. When God says something, he means it. When he repeats himself multiple times, I think it's because he REALLY means it.

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So, as I was sewing curtains, [You see, my mom taught me to sew when I was growing up. I wasn't always a very willing student, but I did learn. I would consider myself a mediocre seamstress at best, but my mom - she's good. Seriously, Vera Wang has nothing on her.] I started thinking about the little girls in Haiti who never get new clothes, and who are dependent on the kindness of others even for the few hand-me-down items they have. And I started thinking, I can sew. My mom can sew. My mom has lots of fabric. We can find some easy patterns that I can handle. We can buy more fabric. Maybe some of my friends would want to help...

That was how it started. I contacted Mission to Haiti, which is my favorite mission organization, and asked if they would distribute dresses if we made them. Well, they said yes, so I guess that means "game on."

I'm putting this out there for the readers of this blog in case anyone would like to help in some way. Can you sew? Do you have extra fabric? If you can't sew maybe you'd like to cut out the patterns for someone else to sew? Would you like to donate money for fabric or patterns or shipping? Please call me or email me or facebook me if you want to help in any way. I am excited to see how God help me follow through with this idea he placed in my head!