It’s Showtime!

Hello, prayer warriors and tea drinkers! It has been a very encouraging month and a month that had me cry tears of joy! I first wanted to just thank everyone for all of your support for my family, and our new tea adventure. Here are some encouraging words from Matthew that sums up how this month has gone for me.

“So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him”. Matthew 7:11

God is so good. He has blessed me this month with so many gifts that had me crying tears of joy, which is not normal for me. Before I get started on the topic of this post, I just wanted to give a few important updates that happened this month.

My sister, Michele Rezewski, who suffered a traumatic brain bleed back in June of this year and was diagnosed with Moyamoya disease which almost took her life, and left her in a wheelchair without the use of her left arm and struggling to use her left leg, has finally been released from the hospital and sent home! This has been an answer to so many prayers from our family, and all of you. Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers, it has literally been a lifesaver.

Another wonderful thing that has happened this month which brought tears to my eyes, and I never thought I would be so happy just to see and hear it, but, for the first time, my baby girl Thea said the word, momma! Regina got it all on video for me, since I was at work when it happened. I just can’t stop watching the video, it makes me soooooo happy. We are not sure yet if Thea even knows what she is saying, but just watching this girl grow up has been one of the best gifts God has ever given me. Here is the video if you want to take a look, but beware, you might be glued to your screen for the next hour like I was, just replaying how cute my baby girl is 🙂

On With The Show!

Little Prayer Tea Company has only been around for a few months now, and so far, we are only an online store. This was about to change, sort of…

Sometime in October, Regina had the idea to sign us up for the Puyallup Church of the Nazarene’s Holiday Bazaar. I was a little reluctant to say yes, since almost all my childhood weekends I could be found underneath a table at one of my parents’ craft shows. But after talking it over, we decided to go for it. We had more work ahead of us than I had imagined.

We needed to order supplies, design our booth setup, put together gift baskets and tea tins and since I am a little bit of a perfectionist, I was getting worried that we might be in over our heads. I mean, this was going to be our first impression to a world of people that we don’t know or have connections with. I wanted to make sure that our company made a GOOD first impression. Everything needed to be perfect.

November 3rd, 2017:

The day before showtime turned out to be a very stressful day. We were so far behind that I was starting to get discouraged. I had 8 gift baskets that needed to be wrapped, about 75 samples that needed to be put together and a whole lot of tins that needed tea in them, and so much more, we needed help.

“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Psalms 121

And the Lord sent us some help. We could not have done this without our good friend Katie’s help. Thank you, Katie. She came over and helped us create some beautiful gift baskets, put together almost all of our sample tins and helped us transfer things from our house over to the church. She stayed with us until everything was done and we were ready to go. What a blessing.

My parents also came up to help us during the show, which we really ended up needing. Trying to take care of a baby while talking to customers about your product was a little bit more difficult than I thought it would be, so thanks Mom and Dad for watching Thea, getting us lunch and being there for moral support.

If we could view through eyes of faith the people we meet each day we’d quickly see God’s gracious hand in all who come our way. —D. DeHaan

November 4th had arrived! We got in early to finish setting up our booth and were ready for the crowds. There were about 10 other booths in the room with us, selling everything from pictures, to bracelets, and all sorts of handmade crafts. We were the only tea company in the building. We were also very fortunate to have a wonderful girl named Helen right next to us. She was selling her handmade beanies and some pretty delicious cookies :). We bought a set of matching beanies for Thea and Regina, it was super cute. Helen is the girl in the picture at the top of the page. Thanks Helen for being such a great neighbor!

The time was now 9 am, and some people started coming in. We started greeting people as they slowly walked by our booth, and as I looked over at Helen’s booth, she was already selling her cookies. She quickly came over to us a few minutes later and told us that she was almost out of cookies so we better buy some soon :). We bought 3 sugar cookies and a couple chocolate cookies. They were delicious.

9:45 am. We had a couple people stop by our booth by now, but no sales, unless you count my Mom buying a cup of tea. I had set my expectations pretty low for this show, but again, I was getting a little discouraged. People had been walking right by our booth. I thought, “maybe we brought the wrong product to a craft show”…

“But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.” 2 Chronicles 15:7

10 am. We made our first sale! People started to flood into the room now, and our booth was getting noticed. We started talking to everyone that walked by, giving away free samples of tea and always getting the same response, “mmmm, this is really good tea”. We explained our teas to customers and told them about our company and how we are trying to encourage prayer and each one of our tea tins had its own custom prayer on it. The feedback was phenomenal!

11 am. “omg, they are selling tea!”, “Wow, that smells delicious”, and my favorite “We heard that there was a tea booth and we had to come check it out”. This is the response we were hearing from our customers. I was so amazed that not only were people stopping by, but people were talking about our booth to others and recommending they come take a look. I was starting to get a face cramp from smiling and talking to everyone about our products, it was amazing.

12 pm. A lady comes up to our tea booth with a couple of her friends and starts raving about rooibos tea and how it has changed her life. She starts talking to us about the health benefits of drinking rooibos tea and how she drinks it every day either hot, iced or blended. She then looks at her friends and starts promoting rooibos tea to them. She grabs about 4 tins of rooibos tea and buys them from us. She was so excited and was wonderful to talk to. A few minutes after she and her friends left our booth, she came running back and said “I talked her into it. We need more rooibos tea!” Her friend then purchased a tin of rooibos tea and a cute Tea Man infuser with the guidance of the rooibos queen :).

I will stop with the time stamps here. The show went on for another 3 hours and it was such a wonderful day. We got to meet so many people and connect. We handed out our business cards, gave out free samples and shared stories with our customers, we even got invited to do another show at an elementary school! This is exactly what I had in mind for our company. People gathering together and talking over tea.

To everyone that was at the show either as a vendor or as a customer, thank you so much for being a blessing in our lives. I want to take this time to thank one more person in particular, Britta. Britta came by our booth about 3 or 4 times and was so excited about what our company was doing. She is a wonderful person to talk to and was so encouraging. I really appreciate you stopping by and having great conversation.

This show was not only a great success, it was also a testament to what community should look like in God’s kingdom. There was joy and laughter, conversation and love. God was definitely in the building.

If you didn’t get a chance to see us at this show, we decided we wanted to do one more show before the end of the year. We will be at the Auburn YMCA November 18th from 9am – 2pm. Come on by and let’s have a cup of tea together.

Sincerely,
Ryan Conlon
Employee of Jesus Christ