There was a lot going on last week including sick children, prepping for the Kevin Swanson Family Economics Conference, very little sleep......not a lot of writing got done, but I'm back at it today.
We've seen God's faithfulness again and again. He was definitely at work in our lives these last few days, perhaps just showing us that our prayers have not been in vain, perhaps just to give us a little bit of encouragement. I'm not sure, but no matter what we're thankful!
On Friday, as we were heading out to the conference, Renaissance Man made a deal with our neighbour to take his manure spreader in exchange for the threshing machine in our barn. It is a win-win for both of us. That was a huge answer to prayer in terms of how we were going to acquire machinery without spending any money! It felt like we'd just been given free machinery.
As well, this weekend we decided we would bring some books out of storage that we've sold in the past at other homeschool conferences. We started a little book business a few years ago where we sold books, cds, or dvds that have impacted our family personally and that we wanted to get into the hands of other families, hopefully with the idea that they would be impacted as well.
On the Saturday morning, we were setting up and a certain man came up and was trying to help as he realized we had way more books than the size of the table, so he was trying to get us some more space somehow. I didn't realize he was the pastor of the church where it was being hosted. He started to look at our materials and was amazed. It wasn't long after, once we were all set up, that he came up to me and said, "I want one of everything." I tried not to look surprised, or thrilled, or blown away, but I was. At the end of the day, someone from the church came up to me with a cheque that made me want to jump up and down. I tried to stay calm and merely pointed him to my daughter who handled all the cash that day. Oh my goodness. As we packed up our books that day in to boxes with signficantly less in them, we realized God had pure and simply blessed our book business that day in a major way, not to mention all the other sales we made, which allowed us to pick up some of Kevin Swanson books ourselves!
Again, it felt like free money. We'd purchased those books we were selling and paid for them years ago. We had put the book ministry on hold for a couple of years because our family size had increased in the last few years in such a way that it was trickier and trickier to get to the homeschool conferences without having a major impact on the family. We received some advice from friends that also had a family ministry suggesting that we wait until the littlest ones were a little older as that was what they had done. For them it was now tremendously easier with older children. This weekend we felt we could handle it though as it was a shorter conference and our whole family could be there. We're often not allowed to bring the whole family to homeschool conferences. Ironic, wouldn't you say? Anyway, all that to say, we had been just storing the paid-for books on our shelves for too long. It was time to move them. Getting paid for them seemed like extra money that we hadn't anticipated and we certainly didn't expect to sell as many as we did!
RM's first words to me were, "What do you think we should do with the money?" Uh, a vacation? That's what I was thinking! Yikes, where was my head?! So I quickly answered, "Why, what are you thinking?" He immediately responded, "Mortgage." So today, that's where he's heading. We're putting that money completely towards the mortgage before we spend it thinking that free money could go here or here or here.....you get the idea.
Later on today, we'll have 3 Porsches on our property. Another one arrives this afternoon from a guy out of town that is having his towed here to have RM fix it. There will be another significant chunk of money inside the vehicle as a prepayment of sorts for RM. That is also money we didn't anticipate a few weeks ago. It also felt like free money, so that, too will go towards the mortgage today. In some ways, it's a drop in the bucket, but isn't that what the Bible says though, little by little? So, we are excited to be making progress on the mortgage with money we didn't expect. Barry Cameron, the author of the book The ABC's of Financial Freedom, said this would happen once we got started on a serious plan of debt reduction. God would just bless our efforts in areas we didn't expect and so He is.
One of the Porsches might be leaving soon if another deal works out today. The owner of the skid steer we want is coming by to see if he wants to trade his skid steer for our car. This is a very positive trade for us if he decides to take the car. I'm praying! That will feel like a free tractor if that works out, too.
Do we feel thankful this weekend? You bet. God has seriously blessed us in ways we could never have anticipated. We're so grateful! He's so faithful!
Now, just to keep it all real, I still have water in my basement and I have several laundry loads at the laundromat ahead of me today, not to mention I have new "washing dishes" muscles from leaning over the tub as we have to do them in the bathroom, but my perspective is still gratitude as I just have to see what God has done and know He's going to take care of us, including our plumbing issues, in His timing.
The grass around the farm is getting greener. A beautiful warm wind came yesterday to dry up our soaking wet land. It felt like the wind Noah must have felt when God was drying up the earth after the flood. It made it super difficult for the kids to play outside without being blown away, but I knew God had a purpose, even for the wind. Just as he sent the wind for Noah and for our land, He has a purpose in sending trials our way. And, just to keep us on track, He sends blessings along the way that make the journey, particularly the debt-reduction journey, just that much more manageable.
More on the Kevin Swanson conference later......
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