I Couldn’t Have Done it Without YOU!

Thank you everyone for all your support in helping me raise the funds for my upcoming trip to the Arab World!

With your financial gifts, as well as your donations of items for our yard sale, the Lord brought in enough to cover all of my trip expenses, and then some!  I was able to pass along the extra monies to the Global Training Institute to assist others in the group who hadn’t reached their fundraising goal yet.

We had a great yard sale, even though it was over 100 degrees last weekend. Thanks to all of you who donated items for us to sell…you know who you are.  Special thanks to Terry and Diane for getting up before the crack of dawn to help set up and sell and to Chuck for helping to put stuff away in 100+ degrees.  This is what the garage looked like before we moved everything out to the driveway for the sale last Saturday.

We had a steady stream of folks on Saturday despite the heat so I didn’t have time to take any photos after things got started.  And although there were less visitors on Sunday, we still had some good sales.

On Sunday we set up our cashier’s table in a shady spot right by the front door of the house.  The quiet pace made it almost relaxing. The income from both days were a huge addition to the fundraising goal.  Thank you!

Shredder even decided to come out and hang with us for a while.  She couldn’t quite decide if it was too hot to lay in the sun.  In this shot she’s right next to my chair, half in and half out of the sun.

Also if anyone’s interested we still have a lovely 18 place-setting set of 1961 vintage Kayson’s Golden Rhapsody china for sale.  It has lots of extras and serving pieces as well.  You’ll see vintage china like this being used for the latest wedding or baby showers or even a wedding reception!  For more photos and info visit my ad on Craig’s List

When I sell them, I’ll be putting the funds in savings to start an account for future short term missions trips, with the hope that the Lord will allow me to go again sometime.

Thank you again to all of you for your support financially, through yard sale donations and your continued prayer and encouragement for the trip.

By the way, GTIW is still raising funds to pay for the travel and training expenses of the women from the Arab World that will be attending the sessions.  You can still donate here.

Using Custom Blurb Books for Fundraising!

This week I finished two different Blurb books for a non-profit organization that I help out part time.  I love creating these books and thinking of new ways to use them to help others.

The first book that I finished this month was a  (200-page) 12″ x 12″ photo book that captured the trip that I was privileged to go on in October of 2011.  I joined a team of 7 other women and 1 man who traveled to Israel and Jordan to gather information and talk to women in the Arab World about an upcoming training program that’s being offered by the Global Training Institute for Women (GTIW aka Greater Reach Ministries) beginning in May 2012.  The 6 training sessions will take place over a 3-year period.  Their goal is to see transformed women who are rooted in their biblical identity and have a clear understanding of their spiritual gifts, resulting in courageously leading other women to the same truth.  They hope to take at least 20 Christian Arab women leaders through this program and in the future expand into Eastern Europe and the U.S. as well.

Our hope is that the photos I took on the trip will help them to spread the word about the need for training and the vision of GTIW and help raise funds to pay for the women who have limited income to attend the training.  They’ve also asked me to join them in May as the photographer/historian at the first training session in the Arab World.

If you’d like to get a sampling of the big book, you can check it out here.  The photos of the people that we met with have been omitted from the online book preview for their own security, since some Christians and Muslim Background Believers risk their lives in professing their faith in Christ.

The second book that I created is a personal Prayer Journal that contains 31 blank pages to write in and a page with scripture and a photo from the Holy Land for every 7 blank pages.  If you’d like to see a full preview of the journal, please take a look here.

All proceeds from both books help to fund the Global Training Institute for Women… So after you see it, if you decide you’d like to order a few for yourself or as a gift, please use this link and get 15% off your whole order with the discount code 15OFFBLURB (all caps).   

f you write a page each day in the journal, it will last a full month.  If you write less than a page, then the journal will cover a longer period of time. In the future we may be researching other printing options to lower the cost and increase the fund-raising dollars per book and be able to increase the page count as well.  Plus we’ll be creating new designs with different photos and possibly a planner/calendar layout too!

For more information about the ministry or if you would like to contribute directly, please visit the website to donate at GreaterReach.com, send a check to the address below or contact them at:

Global Training Institute for Women
8283 N. Hayden Road, Suite 258
Scottsdale, AZ 85258

email. Info[at]GTIW[dot]com

480.718.3062

Be sure to tell them where you heard about it!  And let me know your thoughts on what you’d like to see in future book products as well. Thanks so much!