Mennonite Relief Sale

In an earlier post, I spoke of the preview to the Mennonite Relief Sale. This past weekend was the actual Relief Sale. Over 300 quilts were auctioned, for the sake of funding various worldwide missions. They raised tens thousands of dollars this weekend!

There were food vendors. They are hard to see in this photo; they are stationed around the expo hall, along the walls. What you are best able to see in this photo are the tables where you could sit and eat the food you purchased. Beef cheesteaks; turkey, chicken, or beef barbeque sandwiches; roast beef or ham sandwiches; hot dogs; pizza; baked potatoes; soups. And for dessert, there was strawberry pie; homemade donuts; milkshakes; cookies; and much much more!

There was an a cappella men's group.

There was a station where you could donate your loose change, and it would be counted and bagged. (See the penny hanging in the top left hand corner of this picture?)

And there were QUILTS!!! Three hundred eighty three of them!

Some were antique and vintage.

I, of course, gravitated towards the modern styles.

But I have a major thing for the simplicity of a beautifully crafted Amish quilt.

Once it was time to auction the quilts, they were placed on the slanted rotating surface you see above, and the auctioneer could literally get a quilt auctioned in about thirty seconds!

We went Friday and skipped Saturday. Next year, we will go Saturday and skip Friday. Friday's quilts were the less beautiful ones; they went for anywhere from $15 to $250ish. Saturday's quilts, some of which you can see on the stage in these two photos, went for MUCH more.

The caption in the photo above says, "Meeting basic needs in the name of Christ." You absolutely have to love the dedication of the Mennonites when it comes to being His Hands and His Feet throughout the world.