I thought I would share some photos of what it looks around here during Easter.  Hopefully, they will help you to see why it grew so quiet on my blog, but more than that, I hope you see something a little harder to explain and truly inspiring…

For the last couple of years, we have been so blessed by volunteers willing to do all sorts of jobs.  We started posting these “at-home” tasks on-line and letting people do them at their home while watching TV, visiting or when it worked for them.  Here our ribbon is waiting in bags for a volunteer to stop by and pick it up.  No small task…to cut all the ribbon we need.  We generally tie three multi-colored strings together to give an extra pretty look. A women’s small group took on this task from a local church.  What a help! 

Some prepping of the stairwell to our basement.  Mark was a good sport and he is a great painter!

Here’s the finished product…

Preparing the basement for the beginning of assemblies…

We have a great shelving system that wraps around our basement…

Here’s another shot…looking from our wrapping stations.  Yes, even the cat likes this time of year 😮

We need to have the system ready to sort through all the donations that come in…

and like this…

and this…almost daily, during this ourteach, people leave a bag or two of things they think we can use…and that adds up when a few people stop by…But some days are a little bit overwhelming (not really, exciting is a better word at seeing God’s movement through the dedication and devotion of others), but only until it goes to the basement.  It gets sorted through quickly.  When it is one person sorting, it feels like it takes forever.  When it is two, wow…what a difference!  Actually on this day, someone brought over a bunch of items from their sister’s estate.  The sister had collected Easter and other holiday items and had made them promise they would find someone who could use it.  It just so happens that their daughter-in-law heard of what we were doing and shared the info.  The more remarkable fact was that many, many of our bins had gone empty just the day before so this delivery was perfectly timed! 

This year was the first year that we had items actually delivered to our house from UPS.  Two boxes of baskets (100 of them).  It was so exciting!

A lot of times, it is just small donations…this was given to us from a sweet lady.  Actually, twice.  Another woman dropped off this set later in the season too…those stuffed animals were so incredibly soft!!

And then there was the Dollar Tree’s collection, which often just blew us away…yes, this is just one pick-up.  We picked up twice a week, and from their estimates, the South Lyon community donated close to 5,000 items!  The harder part to believe is that almost all of it went out…we have just a few coloring books, bubbles and play-dough left that will go to a couple of different summer programs.  These baskets were packed full!!

We were also amazed at the number of groups and places that collected for us.  The South Lyon Center for Active Adults…

The Girl Scouts celebrated their 100 year birthday and the South Lyon area Girl Scouts collected over 360+ coloring books and crayons for us…

Some even used their talents to make items for our baskets…

And some even made their own baskets following our guidelines…one lady made 8 of them herself and brought them over right before our last delivery.  She had so much fun that she decided to hang on to them until we needed them to decorate her house…they were so cheery and festive.  It was quite sweet!

There were also many more.  The South Lyon Garden club used some funds and brought a wonderful donation of toys.  The United Presybeterian church collected items from their congregation, and we received a couple of monetary donations from all over that truly helped.  People brought things from Brighton, Pinckney, Hamburg, Whitmore Lake, Livonia, Sterling Heights, Ortonville…from all over. One letter and check even came from Florida!  All of it was really quite amazing!!

There are so many things that go into the baskets.  This year, I stood in the basement and thought of my dad as I looked at the candy shelves.  It was a short thought of how much I missed him being here with us at this time of year, and a couple of days later came an email from my cousin remembering my dad saying last year how he wished the baskets could have more candy in them.  I too remembered him saying, “Candy.  That’s what the kids love!”  So I sent up a little prayer to heaven along with some tears asking God that if the baskets were meant to have more, could He bring it?

Let me say…we have NEVER had as much candy as we received this year…

It was everywhere…

And came from all sorts of places…this was a car full…donated Valentine’s candy from a store that couldn’t bear to throw it out.

Some in large batches…our local nursing home residents helped unbag and box all of the candy we picked up from hitting the clearance racks at Target.  They loved it!

Some in small amounts…it all helps!

Some on sale…with our faithful friends keep an eye out for the really good deals!

It came and came and came.  What a gracious God we have!  I can see my dad smiling in heaven as God answered the prayer of his daughter in ways she truly wasn’t expecting…

And so it began to come together…the basement, the table of goodies for our volunteers to snack on, the baskets, and the events.Baskets began to be made…

Piles started to grow…

Kids smiled…oh, the kids, we had so many this year.  We always do, but this year, their enthusiasm, their hearts and their hands helped to create so many beautiful baskets!  Their attitudes encouraged us, and their eager willingness to help others is reason for a lot of hope for our world.  The number of kids who wanted to come back to help was remarkable.   

Volunteers came…from all over.  Our family was incredibly supportive, and now our extended family too!  We had lots of independent families, retirees, small groups, Girl Scouts, and neighbors come to help.  My mom devotingly came down every week to help sort…she loved the job!  So many hands gave their time and energy to getting the baskets out… 

The basement filled…again and again…

So did our garage…a first time…it filled at least twice…but I lost count after that with things become a bit more of a blur with the unexpected passing of my aunt.

Our upstairs, which is devoted to the adult basket assembly…it filled too.

The boxes raised and lowered again and again…these are mostly travel/hotel samples/soaps that we collect year round.

Funny story, I was praying one morning for shelves.  For some reason, it seemed like we needed another set but they are so costly.  I just couldn’t bear the idea of spending money on them, so I prayed asking God for some help with this…could He please bring us shelves somehow, someway?  In His own funny way (I do believe God has a sense of humor) and with a strong reminder that humbling ourselves is half the battle, late that night while on a walk with Mark, someone had put a nice set of shelves out to the trash in our neighborhood.  Much to my chagrin, after seeing that they were just dusty, I decided to drag them home.  Not something I wanted to do, but how could I walk pass them and say, “Not those!”  Mark was just slightly ahead of me on a phone call that had come in uexpectedly so he didn’t see me dragging them along.  I can’t imagine how silly it looked!  After poking fun at me, he helped me get them down to the basement (only for me to haul them back up a couple of weeks later to where we needed them–our dining room–and yes, they go back in the basement the rest of the year). 

Now you all might think that we must do nothing but sort donations and build Easter baskets, but that is not true.  It could consume every moment of our lives, but I have gotten good at shutting the door to the basement or staying away from our living room and dining room.  I realized a couple years into this outreach that God doesn’t ask us to be a slave to what He calls us too…that is often our choice.  It is only by balancing work with pleasure that you can stay focused on the joy of what you are doing!  So here’s a glimpse of the other part of our lives…

We went skiiing up north near Petosky…

We celebrated a birthday…and then left the decorations up for a bit.

Played in what little snow we received this winter…

We traveled to Arizona for a long weekend in the sun…

There was time for basketball…

We took time to enjoy the incredibly warm weather that came upon Michigan in March and fooled us all into thinking it was the beginning of summer…

We took time to go to a Christian rock concert…my whole family (minus just a couple).   And yes, we danced, sang and were humbled by the number of times God spoke to each of our hearts in His own and personal way…

But no matter what, the end of anything is sometimes the hardest.  As we entered into the last two weekends, I won’t lie…it was difficult and long.  And yet, we were met with unending support, encouragement and strength to deal with the unusual set of circumstances that had arisen.  All that said, I think almost every member of our family was ready for life to return to our “normal”.

There were lots of deliveries, tons of baskets, and lots of last minute donations.  We often don’t take pictures of those receiving, but the feedback was just like years past…a gratefulness in their voices and on their faces that words (or probably even pictures) can’t fully describe.  There were moments of relief, desperation, excitement and joyfulness.  There was awe and grace, and then there were tender moments where what we had done just didn’t seem enough for the need we encountered.  And yet, somehow, we were able to go farther and deliver more…

We were able to take 100 more baskets to another elementary school in Flint where those 100 kids often don’t have food on the weekends…would they likely have an Easter basket?  This year, thanks be to God, yes they did!  That is what all of those paper bags are filled with…specially made basket for each child in their weekend back pack food program.  We were so thrilled and so were they!

We were able to meet the needs that we have always been blessed to be able to, but at the end of this outreach, God enabled us to take even more to a special place that helps families with disabled children, whose list is forever long.  We usually service them with about 200; this year, over 500…you should have seen the beaming faces and excited staff!

While we were physically exhausted and I was emotionally spent, part of me didn’t want to close the door…it was that beautiful…all of it…the prep, the builds, the volunteers, those bringing donations, offering their cars, traveling to and from…here in this picture, we have two vans filled with Easter baskets following us to Flint (you can see them in the mirror)…Seeing excited children and excited parents; hugs from grateful social workers; passionate family advocates telling us of the lives that were touched; grateful, quiet words from the elders–one with tears in her eyes telling me softly how she wished she could be in the “field” working with us–at a nursing home who were so glad to help build a few baskets, the volunteer who baked all of the goodies for our assemblies lifting a load off of my shoulders.  God doesn’t call us to easy tasks…that should be a red flag, He calls us to His tasks, often the things the world is so willing to overlook because it is difficult.

From the little we give, it almost seemed too much to receive…even when His call is hard, He doesn’t ask us to bear these things on our own.  He comes alongside us, goes behind us, props us up when we could fall, breathes life back into us when we are not sure it will be there tomorrow, and He brings it all into passing.  It is June, nearly two months later, as I write these words with tears brimming in my eyes for I am still in awe…at all He did for us and for them this Easter.