Embraced by Grace...Part 2

I can't believe it's been a week and a half since our fundraiser, and I'm just now blogging about it! It was hard to put it off for this long, but I NEEDED to focus on Annabell and Liam for a few days. We had a fabulous time on our staycation, and my daily blog posts about our activities were all I could handle last week.

Now, where do I begin? I'm still reeling from the beauty of the night. We gave the event the same title as this blog: "Embraced by Grace," and how appropriate that title turned out to be! Not just because of the place settings (which included a mini-essay I wrote about grace and adoption), or the incredible music chosen my Rob and Joy Derner (we ended with "Your Grace Still Amazes Me"...and I still have chills).

Those things blended perfectly, but the evening's theme was most poignant to me as I stood alone in a church classroom, trying to calm my nerves before the official start to our program. In the hall outside the door I listened as familiar voices laughed and greeted one another. Through the window I watched cars streaming into the parking lot. In the air I smelled delicious food prepared by people who had only met me a handful of times, yet drove all the way from Indiana to PA just to cater our dinner at cost. In a few moments I would walk out of that classroom and enter a sanctuary that had been beautifully decorated by loved ones and filled with fabulous donated silent auction items. And all of this was happening in a church I don't even attend, one which welcomed us with open arms.

As I stood in that classroom, reflecting on these things and crying my way through a practice run of the letter I was about to read in front of all those people, I knew that the term "Embraced by Grace" was meant for me, not just for our Rwandan child. Since the start of this adoption, Tim and I have been embraced repeatedly by the grace of our friends, family, neighbors, and even strangers. What a humbling and breathtaking journey this has been!

The evening went perfectly...the videos played without a hitch, dinner was delicious, the speakers were inspiring, the silent auction was smokin' (where else can you sell lemon bars for $79?), I got through the reading of my letter to our child without breaking into "the ugly cry," and the musicians brought the house down. Considering the fact that I had spent months visualizing every detail and prepared color-coded, minute-by-minute schedules for every person involved in the logistics of the night, I shouldn't be surprised!

But, honestly, it wasn't my hand that brought it all together - it was God's. It's so hard to describe the sensation...the closest I've come is to tell people I felt like I was riding a wave all week before the event. Something big and powerful was propelling me toward a destination, and the show was His, not mine. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thank you to everyone who took part in our special night. We will never, ever forget what it felt like to be Embraced by Grace!

Below are some pictures from the event. Somehow I'm missing photos of all the people who spoke or performed (oops!!!), but at least the decorations are well documented. :)

Place Settings - We created these placeholders for each of the 8 seats per table. Every place had a different quote that corresponded to one of 4 themes: Grace, Love, Service, and Life.

When the card was removed from the napkin, it could be opened from the back to reveal a short essay I wrote about how grace is reflected in adoption. I'll be posting the essay separately.

The eight quotes we used were:

Grace:

"The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you." - Unknown

"Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely, and the unwanted according to the graces we have received, and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work." -Mother Teresa

Life:

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." -Winston Churchill

"I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back." -Maya Angelou

Service:

"What I do you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful." -Mother Teresa

"If you think you're too small to be effective, you've never been in bed with a mosquito." -Betty Reese

Love:

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread." -Mother Teresa

"I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there can be no more hurt, only more love." -Mother Teresa

Table number tents:

Program and Silent Auction Listings:

Place holders, front and back (assigned bidding numbers for the silent auction were inside):

The whole enchilada...more work than it looks like!

Check-in table:

Dining tables:

Silent auction:

Tim made 3 sets of his homemade hardwood building blocks for the auction, and displayed them in true Tim style - big and bold!

The very lucrative baked goods table. I was a little concerned we'd end up with some fights over these goodies!

My kids enjoying brownie sundaes for dessert: