Sorry it has taken me so long to post on our MayFest event!  I have actually back dated this event for the purposes of our time line!

First of all I would like to thank everyone that helped us in preparing for MayFest and those that helped us with our booth on the big day.  I am not going to put names down because I am afraid I will forget someone.  We appreciate so much all the time and energy that everyone put into this event.  We feel so blessed to call you our friends!  Thank you!  Thank you! 

Well, the local newspaper said that "MayFest was a huge success."  I applaud the committee that pulled the whole thing together.  It was very well organized, the music line up was great and there were vendors galore.  I was suprised by all of the Christian and Gospel Music that was performed.  Even the mayor spoke of God in his opening speech.  Praise the Lord!!

If you were to have spoken with the vendors that were there, you would have probably heard a different story.  The people were only there to window shop.  There were some vendors who lost money because of the $35 booth fee.  We were blessed enough to have made $100 after our booth fee.

I must confess, I was discouraged at first.  We had all worked so hard.  Anthony and Hannah were working the booth that day.  Anthony had gotten decked out in his clown outfit to sell balloons to passing children.  Hannah had her basket of spoon dolls and stood in front of our booth.  We even named our booth, "Handcrafted for Adoption."  We were ready for the crowds to come into our booth buying things left and right.  It ended up being our crowds of workers that helped man the booth that ended up pulling us out of the hole!

I was very discouraged.  Behind my smile my tears were swelling up.  Then I looked over at my two beautiful children.  They had worked so hard for this day.  Discouragement was setting in on them.  "The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged," (Deuteronomy 31:8).  God was with us.  I couldn't let discouragement pull me down any further!  I looked at my children who were so full of sadness and I told them that God had us there for a reason.  Maybe today God was only asking us to be fishers of men.  In some way we would touch someone's heart.  Maybe it would be to encourage someone to pursue adoption.  Maybe it would be just to share our faith walk with God.  We may never know, but God knows.

So at that moment, I pulled myself out of the hole that I had fallen into. "This is what I have asked of God for you; that you will be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love, and that you will have the rich experience of knowing Christ with real certainty and clear understanding," (Colossians 2:2, Living Bible).  I did have the rich experience of knowing Christ with real certainty.  It was at that moment that I thanked God for the day.  His name was to be glorified.  Whether we brought in money or not, His name was still to be glorified!

There were people who were very interested in hearing about our adoption and our faith walk with Christ.  I was able to give them a card with more info on it about this blog and asked them to pray for our boys and our adoption process.  Maybe in some way we were able to encourage them.  There was one lady who did catch me off guard.  She had lingered for a while in front of our booth.  So I walked up to her and shared with much joy in my heart about our boys.  She looked at me and said, "I do NOT support adoption.  There is one mother and one father for each child.  I do NOT support adoption!"  Well, I was taken quite back.  I actually didn't know what to say.  I just smiled and said I was sorry to hear that.  What was I supposed to say?  Later as I thought about it more, I wondered if she truly understood what adoption was.  Did she know Christ?  Had she allowed God to adopt her into His family?  I may never know.  She had a very hard heart.  I only pray that someone may be able to soften it someday.

So our day was not a loss.  It was a day to give God the glory.  It was a day for us to share God's amazing love with those who were willing to listen.  It was a day to be encouraged in our walk of faith with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Below are some pictures from MayFest.  I hope you enjoy!

One of our fearless workers...Amy Wolfe??

Joyce Moyer Hostetter author of BLUE.  Thanks Joyce for donating the raffle basket and books!!

Mandy and Amy modeling blankets by Stacey Main.  Thanks so much Stace!!  I love ya!

Amy modeling designer t-shirts by Ben Hostetter and Amy Wolfe!  Thanks for your creative work!

Mandy modeling purse made by one of our employee's mom.  Has matching checkbook and change purse.

Amy modeling Aprons for Adoption by Mandy. 

Amy working hard!

Josh Shook.

Mandy???

Kathleen Hartzler.  Thanks for being one of our biggest customers for the day!

Anthony ready to join the Kazoo band!

Special appearance by Will Rejoice

Mandy our race car fan!!

Our booth.  Sonya, Mandy and Hannah

Hannah and Mandy

Hannah's spoon dolls

Sonya and Mandy

Setting up our booth

Hannah and Sonya

Austin modeling balloon for Anthony's balloon poster