What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Thanks to You

The fact that I have been a bad blogger lately, is not only because I am so busy these days but ALSO because every time I sit down to blog- Blogger won't let me upload any pictures!  I have been trying and trying, but to no avail.   Is anyone else having trouble like this?  Or it is just me?  We really need a new computer badly and I know this about ourselves.  Yesterday as I was working on blogging during rest time (for two pointless hours) the computer shut down five times.  Not fun.  (So maybe it is just me.)
 I guess I will just have to, as much as I hate to do it, start blogging sans pictures until Google decides to be friendly again.  Drat.  No pictures...what's a girl to do?!?  

Read on for a picture-less post.  If you can stand it.
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Within ten minutes of posting the last plea  blog post, a kind reader made a first donation to the cause.  You have NO idea how happy that little message in my inbox made me!  Then another!  And another!  I am so proud of you!  Thank you all for kindly offering a bit of yourself to build up another family in need.  You all have earned a little over $200.00 for my friends so far!  One amazing woman made a very large contribution and one amazing woman made a very small donation and both contributions pleased me exceedingly. The large donation was so generous and thoughtful and loving to give for a family of complete strangers!  And the pittance, I know, came from someone who doesn't have a lot to give but who gave non-the-less.  Reminds me of another exceptional woman.  And all of you in between~ thank you, thank you, for taking part in something that means so much to me.

I can not thank you all enough, for helping me make a difference!  I do hope that, if you haven't already, you might consider contributing to this cause.  (You can read about it here.)  I am keeping the donation box open until Christmas and will be posting irritating reminders at the end of each post- just for a last ditch effort to raise as much money for them as possible.

It did occur to me after the donations started coming in, that many donations were under the $20.00 mark, thus not qualifying for the free gift.  And that seems so unfair!  Because each one of your kind contributions means so much to me (and will mean so much to this family, once they find out what I am doing.)  So I decided I was going to hold a drawing each week for a prize for EVERYONE who contributes to my friends' worthy cause.

I picked a name from last week and drew Paula P.  so Paula~you will be getting a bar of my peppermint soap and a crocheted dishcloth from me.  Happy surprise, right?!

And for anyone who donates this week (any donation amount is eligible for drawing)~ I will make you a Sterling-silver-plated Birds Nest Necklace (like this one) with Genuine Freshwater Pearl "eggs".  You can specify how many "eggs" you want in your nest, by the way, and whether those eggs are white, pink or pale yellow. 

This Thanksgiving, I have been especially thankful for you all~ my kind visitors.  You leave your mark on me and I can't help but marvel at the encouragement and friendships that this blog has brought into my life.  (Three cheers for technology!)  It has been a hard year with lots of work and sweat and tears- and yet, you all heap grace upon me.  You have been a little (actually big) bright, cheery spot for me. 

Thank you for all the prayers and support and love you all leave behind for me to enjoy.  I do, so much, enjoy it. Even if it means nothing to you, it means a great deal to me.

You all are too good to me...

4 comments:

Tracy said...

Rebecca, while your kindness does not go unnoticed, I wonder if the money you are going to put toward postage for these "gifts" wouldn't be better applied to the $ for this needy family. I'm pretty sure all (or most) of your readers would agree. As someone who sells soap online, a bar can cost up to $3 to mail.

Paula said...

I agree with Tracy above. If the Paula P. is me (and I am a Paula P.) I am, of course, rather excited as I never get picked for anything! However, given that I live in another country, I would ask if you would mind either drawing again so that the prize goes to someone where the postage doesn't cost you as much OR put what you would have spent on the postage towards the fund for your neighbours. I am not insensitive to the generosity of your gift (your soaps sound delicious!), I just would rather the postage money went to a better cause. You are a good woman Rebecca and it is a pleasure to read your blog.

Rebecca said...

Tracy and Paula~ I am not entirely selfless here. I noticed that after the first three days, contributions screeched to a halt. I hope that, with the addition of a drawing each week, I might be able to draw out a few more donations making a more sizable sum to give to the F family this Christmas for rebuilding their barn and replacing things lost.

The money for shipping is a very small expense-and well worth it-if it draws more people to contribute. Three dollar shipping is nothing compared to a (or a few) 20 dollar donation(s).

AND, it will not be taking away any money that I will be contributing to their family- we have already sent money to them and intend to do more as we can afford it. Shipping is on top of everything else and well worth it, to draw in more contributions and to thank those who have been so kind as to donate. I couldn't have done it myself.

So Paula- you are awfully sweet. But you are GETTING that soap. I want you to have it. So there!

Paula said...

I hope I didn't offend you as I didn't mean to imply that you weren't already giving everything you were able to. I was just concerned that shipping to the UK would be rather expensive.

If the weekly draw encourages more people to donate it is indeed a worthy undertaking. Plus, it does mean we get a chance to enjoy some of your lovely homemade goodies. Quite a thrill for me because, as I said before, I never win anything :-)

If you are sure you are happy to ship abroad I shall be absolutely thrilled to receive your lovely gift. However, if it does prove costly, please, please send it to someone more local. I shall send an email with my address when I get a chance to get on my husband's laptop. For some reason my email account doesn't work on our home laptop anymore which is very annoying!

With very best wishes, Paula