Alan Hillman provided a report late Saturday of great success at the first homeschool convention of the year – the Homeschoolers of Maine Convention held Friday and Saturday in Rockport, Maine.  While there was success in terms of product sales, even greater was the opportunity realized to fellowship with and minister to homeschool families through the Hillman family’s experience and by offering the life-changing films in the Freedom Film Distributors catalog.  The Hillman family’s vision to do business as a family was on display, as their children helped them work their booth, including writing receipts for customers and making change, in addition to offering the products that their children make at home for their Honeysuckle Farms business.  Their children were able to interact with other children of attendees and exhibitors, and the picture of a family working together proved to be powerful.

Alan reports: “Our daughter Abigail had also made some dolls called “His World Dolls” and each one has children that are from a different country.  On our website she puts the family name, nationality, a little about their country, and the favorite family bible verse for that family. She sold three sets of those and thats a double blessing, actually triple:  we are blessed to see other girls happy to play with innocent godly dolls (one little girl paid with her own money), our girls were blessed, and the final blessing comes from the fact that Abigail donates 10% to Operation Nehemiah Missions to the Sudan!”

The Hillmans created a wonderful booth display, including items related to the films they were offering to present a more tangible understanding of the content.  This use of candles made by the West Ladies featured in the Homestead Blessings DVD series is one good example.

Interest was so great in their booth that they found themselves being flooded with shoppers even after many other vendors had closed their booths.  Alan told us that “Shelley and I were both talking and ministering to separate people and all of a sudden we had 4-5 people looking at DVDs.  The woman in the pink (pictured below) had walked a friend over and was going through each Homestead Blessing DVD and was explaining it to her what each one was about in detail.  The other people there listened intently” and this customer’s sharing of her experience with the films led to her friend making a purchase before leaving.  When your customers make the sale for you, you’re in good shape!

We are excited to see other distributors engage with the public at upcoming conferences and other events, so be sure to stay tuned for more updates.  If you are inspired by the Hillman family’s example and are interested in getting involved, see the Join Us section of our website.