If...

It’s amazing what can happen when you inspire a lot of people to even a little involvement. I’ve been reading about the building of the Tabernacle in Exodus , and I was struck by the fact that the people gave over 3¾ tons of silver for its construction.

But I was even more dumbfounded when I read Exodus 38:26 and realized that each person over the age of 20 gave only 1/5^th of an ounce of silver. I’ve wondered at times if God is pleased with the concept of megachurches. It seems, though, that the Israelites were the original megachurch—a couple million strong. Each person gave this tiny amount and they ended up with a mountain of silver.

I think of how this applies to Operation Christmas Child and I realize anew how important it is to spread the vision for this ministry to as many churches and individuals as possible.

If we could get only 180 churches to each contribute 100 gift-filled shoe boxes from their congregation, we’d easily reach our goal of 18,000 boxes from Northwestern PA. And if we got 1,000 churches from each of the 50 states to pack 100 boxes each, we’d have 5 million—very close to our goal of 5.2 million boxes nationwide. Hey, Texas does things in a big way, so we’ll get them to pack an extra 200,001 to put us over the top.

And if I could get 1,000 people to each buy 10 boxes of crayons—well, I’d have 10,000 boxes with no sweat.

If…

3/4 Ton Waxed Me Out

I spend a lot of time praying for things like crayons for my Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes and last week I got an answer. Last Sunday K-Mart advertised their 24-packs of Crayola crayons for a sale price of 20 cents, so I talked with a Wal-Mart manager on Monday and he agreed to match the K-Mart sale price and order me 6,000 boxes of crayons. I was ecstatic and prayed all week that the crayons would arrive by the end of the week during the time of the sale.

On Friday the call from Wal-Mart came right on schedule and I drove my Dodge Caravan to pick up my precious bundles of joy--all 119 cartons of them. It took longer than I expected to pay for them and load them into my car, but I was rejoicing that they all fit!

I was on my way to a funeral that started at 11:00 AM and I left the Peach St. Wal-Mart parking lot at 10:50 to make the drive to West 12th and Asbury--probably a normal 20 minute drive. I was proud that I was only 2 minutes late for the start of the funeral but I did wonder why my car sounded a little funny.

After the service I drove home, and my husband arrived a few minutes after I did and burst into the house yelling, "When are you gonna get those crayons out of the car!" My confusion must have showed, because he went on to 'explain' (kinda loudly) that the rear end of the car was only six inches off the ground and he thought my tires looked flat.

So we unloaded part of the crayons into his truck. Then he and my daughter Jen drove both vehicles to Grace Church where we carried the cartons up two flights of stairs to a loft for storage. Oh, there was also a wall at the top of the stairs to lift them over. Actually Jim and I did the stairs--25 trips or so up and down for each of us carrying 2 cartons per trip--and handed the cargo to Jen to carry across the loft and stack. There was a lot of sweat flowing.

Jim later weighed a carton (14.5 pounds) and after doing the math he found that the total weight was in excess of 3/4 ton. No wonder the car was dragging.

I'm praising God but right now I'm waxed out.