Remember the creative ideas to find money? Well, we got this incredible idea of going to Nauvoo and setting up a booth where we could sale our book. So I piled 17 children into 2 cars, 1 trailer, 4 tents, 25,000 bins and took off in the van that a good friend had just given to us that morning.
There was just one slight problem, the van had over 230,000 miles on it and what should have been a 5 hour drive became a 10 hour drive as the radiator hose exploded. As usual, the Lord provided a miracle and a man stopped and said " I see you have a lot of kids, is there some way that I can help?" He ended up diagnosing, purchasing parts and fixing our car for absolutely nothing. The Lord comes through again.
We arrive in Nauvoo at midnight and set up camp.
We soon found that the place we camped was "inappropriate" (that is one of my favorite words with the children so I might as well use it on myself). It rained and soon we had 6 inches of water going through our tents. Needless to say we moved soon after that.
We set our booth up on the main street going through town and that is where we lived for the next month. We were either at our booth, at the pageant(which we absolutely fell in love with) or trying to get a few hours of sleep inbetween temperatures over 100, thunderstorms that never seemed to cease, a 65 mile an hour windstorm that flattened the tents on top of us and acquiring new and old friendships that were amazing. What an adventure.
The children learned so many things about how to share who they are and what they believe. they spent hours walking the streets talking to people and sharing with them their own personal stories. At the end of each day at the booth they would excitedly ask how much we had made. They counted the money over and over and then would ask, "how much more do we have to have to get a home?" They are wonderful children and it has been wonderful to work together on this incredible effort of raising money for a home.
Then they would go to the pageant and make new friends and tell their stories some more. They have just blossomed in this situation. It has blessed all of us so much. I love it when our children and our family as a whole are stretched beyond what we think that we can handle.
Brian was able to come and join us for the last few days in Nauvoo. It was wonderful to have him there with us.
Unfortunately, we had a rash of mishaps about that time. Our little car that we had brought with us broke down and is still there because it needs a new computer. Then the car Brian drove up to see us in, broke down and it needed a new serpentine belt and the Air Conditioner fixed. At home the same week our bus broke down with a malfunctioning fuel line. I have a feeling that the little automotive devils were working over time on our family. But as usual so were the automotive angels and all breakdowns were in safe places and 2 of the 3 cars are now fixed.
But all is well that ends well. We are all alive and well. Loved our Nauvoo experience with all of our hearts and are better people because we shared, cried, and served and were served in so many wonderful ways.
We were there too, I wish I had known you were there...looking at your pictures I remember seeing some of your kids walking around. We left the day that the storm came through. We went down to the pageant area before we left and we stopped to clean up a lot of the mess so the crew wouldn't be as sad when they got out of church. I love Nauvoo. Congrats on your beautiful family!
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