Country Chatter

This past weekend we had a huge yard and bake sale as a fundraiser for our church building program. The gals in charge did a fabulous job coordinating the event which turned out to be massive as load after load after load of stuff came in. By the way, our homes are now all clutter-free!!!!  When the take-in from a yard sale is $4300+ dollars you know you have sold lots of “stuff”.  Oops…”treasures”!

It took quite a few evenings of pricing, sorting, cleaning, organizing, and boxing in preparation for the big sale. And then the frantic plea went out…..”we need help, lots of help to finish pricing and putting the goods out on Saturday morning at 6 AM”.  6 AM  is before the crack of dawn when most (some) of us are still asleep!!!

It was neat watching and helping it unfold. Like soldier ants going after food a steady stream of people; men, women and young adults, set up rows of tables, laid tarps on the ground, hung clothes on the racks,  and carried box after box out to be unpacked on the tables.

By 8 AM we were selling stuff to a steady crowd of bargain hunters.

Most of the volunteers stayed and helped with whatever needed to be done.  Fresh, hot, homemade doughnuts made on the premises were to die for and a huge hit.  The bake sale itself yielded $800.

And then it was over and cleanup began.

I, along with several others, worked at boxing the unsold clothing to be taken to Goodwill.  Glen and I were chatting about the day and I mentioned the huge amount of man-hours that went into the sale.

Glen said, “But you know, it was so neat watching people work together and we had fun doing it.”  As we chatted I realized how special it is to work together  for a common cause.  We could each have donated money and saved ourselves lots of work and time.  But we also would have missed a huge blessing.  As we worked we laughed, chatted, played a few tricks and had a grand time.  I will have to tell one on Glen…. he bought a pair of sassy, bright red boots with skinny high heels to take home to his wife as a gag gift.  It was fun and we laughed with him as we envisioned Carol in those boots!  The sale united us towards accomplishing a goal;  working together for a cause-our building project. It helped to make the church addition one that belongs to all of us. We have invested a part of ourselves in it.

I thought of the children’s song we sometimes sing…”When we all work together, together, together. When we all work together, how happy we’ll be….When your work is my work and our work is God’s work, when we all work together, how happy we’ll be.”