Blog - Leah Stirewalt

I know…I know…my title of this post was a bit corny (and not very creative), but just overlook my goofiness, okeedokee?

In all seriousness, I’m so thrilled to be able to share some exciting news with you about some amazing things taking place in a ministry in which I’m honored to play a small part.

In late 2011, I was humbled to be asked to join the writing team of A Widow’s Might. At that time, there was a team of only five of us (an additional gal joined our team a few months after me). By early 2013, the team began changing a bit…some ladies moved into new seasons of life and chose to step down from being regular contributors. We opened the door for guest writers to come on board, and the ministry leadership also changed hands just before this time. We could see God stirring up something new, but we just had no idea how incredible!

Fast forward to June 2014, and we are now a ministry consisting of 16 women, serving regularly (plus a handful of guest writers)! God branched out the ministry to include two arms:

A Widow’s Might – “A place where, as widowed women in different seasons of life, we can refresh and encourage each other by sharing our challenges, our tears, and our triumphs.”

aNew Season – “Everyday women redeemed by God through wisdom & faith gained along tough journeys. We share our stories to inspire you to chase LONG FORGOTTEN DREAMS!”

Both ministries are now under the umbrella of the newly created/named aNew Season Ministries.

Additionally, we hosted our first small retreat in March in coastal Virginia, which was an amazing experience for the writing/ministry team as well as the participants!

The first of four devotional books, For the Love of HER Life, was just published and released earlier this month, and we have the other three seasonal volumes in the works now!

And…if that wasn’t enough, we’re hosting our first-ever widow’s conference in Myrtle Beach, SC this November! The planning team has been very active in preparing for the arrival of those that will be joining us, and we deeply know that God is stirring the waters already to do great things in the lives of ALL ladies in attendance! We can’t wait to watch it unfold.

So, with the excitement of the new devotional book just coming out and registration opening for the conference, I’ve decided to do a little giveaway. We need your help in spreading the word about both of these new tools for widows (the book and the conference), and the giveaway is designed to help do just that. When I first began my widow journey, I wish both of these tools had been in existence.

The devotional book is simply written by widows/former widows (including yours truly) that have walked Grief Road. We’re not experts…simply sharing stories from our journey in hopes of bringing encouragement to other women traversing the same path.

The conference is designed with the intent of coming together as a community who have experienced loss and can minister to each other in ways that nobody else can. Click on this link to learn more and to see the sample schedule for the weekend! The early discount runs out soon, so don’t miss out on that little savings as well. If you aren’t a widow but know someone that could benefit from this, I would encourage you to share this with her. Perhaps, you (or a Sunday School class or another group you might be in) could gift it to her! Since it’s being held in November, it would be a great gift heading into the holiday season, one often very difficult for widows.

Now for the giveaway…I’m giving away not one but TWO of our new devotional books, For the Love of HER Life! I’ll randomly select the winning entries using Rafflecopter this weekend and announce the winners on Monday! The contest is active only today and tomorrow (Thursday, 6/12-Friday, 6/13, ET). Even if you’re not a widow, I would encourage you to enter on behalf of someone else that you could bless with this book!

To enter, simply click on the Rafflecopter form below and follow through the entry requirements. The only required entry is that you comment on this particular blog post with a response to the following: briefly share a way that others can better care for widows (this is a question for widows and non-widows alike). After doing so, you can click through the other optional entry methods to gain access to even more entries!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks for helping my sisterhood of widow/former widows spread the word about all that God is doing in His ministry!

To Him be all the glory!

The month of May brought us to and through one of the most challenging moments of our adoption journey thus far…the yard sale!

Yes. A YARD sale, of all things, was a significant test along this new path to bring our children home.

Let’s just face it. Adoption is expensive. It’s ridiculous with the number of children all over this world in need of parents that it costs so much to adopt, but it does. The average person doesn’t have this volume of discretionary money just sitting around, so fundraising is essentially a must!

Our situation is no different. After much prayer and prompting by the Holy Spirit to dive into this journey with full faith that God will equip us with whatever we need to complete this process…we began researching fundraising options.

An idea that popped up from several different adoptive families was that of a large yard sale…one that involves many people. We saw the possibilities (from reading about others’ successful yard sale fundraisers) that we could potentially raise anywhere from $1,500 to $7,000 with this magnitude of a sale.

We knew we had to try. While many fundraising options exist, this is one of the more potentially significant options financially-speaking.

Flyers went out alerting people of our need for their unwanted “stuff”. We spent weeks driving all over Western North Carolina (and even across the border into TN) collecting massive amounts of things that were no longer needed or wanted by others that God allowed to cross our path.

Some of these items came from family and friends. However, some came from perfect strangers.

Some came from people that totally “get” the orphan crisis and some came from people that simply didn’t want to haul off their own stuff.

Some came from believers…some came from vocal unbelievers.

No matter…God used exactly who He intended to use to bless us in our efforts.

We rented a storage unit in which to collect the items, banking on the hope that we would be given so much that we wouldn’t be able to store it at home. We were right!

We ended up with this and MORE, all in a 10’ x 30’ unit!

A couple weeks out from our May 31 sale, we began to feel the effects of our hard work. Our nights grew shorter, our free time was non-existent. The week of the sale, we averaged no more than 5 hours of sleep each night, and the night before the big event…only two hours of sleep.

If truth be told, we began to somewhat regret that we ever took on this endeavor. Certainly there was a better way. But, we were in too deep at this point to even consider bailing out.

The day of the sale arrived, and the load that we’d been storing for several weeks finally made it to the site of the event.

Seeing it all out in front of us simply blew us away. None of this was possible without God directing each step.

He called out each donor (whether they knew His voice or not).

He hand-picked the volunteers.

He perfected the weather for that day (overcast with NO rain, kept temps bearable).

He was in every detail.

As the day went on, I began to fade a bit. I was simply tired. I couldn’t tell how sales were going, and I prayed that all of this work wasn’t in vain.

God, please bless us in this. You called us to do this. We’re trusting you to provide for our every need.

Soon after those private thoughts and prayers entered my mind, my sister-in-law (Donna) came up to me with one of the shoppers.

She said she had something for me.

Just a few moments before, she had picked up a box marked $2.00 and opened it. There was an insulated mug inside, and it read “Great things happen when you follow Jesus”. Donna showed it to a lady standing next to her and commented she should give that to her sister-in-law (me). The lady took it from her and opened it to find $25 inside. Donna then asked her if she cared if she gave it to me. Together, they walked up to me to give me this “special” mug. They shared the story with me. And…Donna and I both cried.

I have no idea who donated the mug to begin with. I have no idea how the $25.00 got in there, but I do know that God sent me that sweet little reminder in the midst of my exhaustion and questioning. To me, it was encouragement to stay the course…to keep “fighting the fight”…He’s called us to do this and will not abandon us now.

The end of the story? The lady bought the mug but left the $25 with us. And…God allowed us to raise nearly $4,000 that day towards our adoption expenses!

To Him be ALL the glory!

Sisterhood of the Traveling Widow-Pants

The Mug