On the Seventh Day

(singing) On the seventh day of National Collection Week my good team gave to me...seven perfect totals; six singing spirits; FIVE ANSWERED PRAYERS; four wide rolls of tape; three carton pallets; two trucks of boxes; and an OCC collection victory.

Yeah, this is an old picture. We're not using those stickers on the Operation Christmas Child cartons this year, but you get the idea. It was another day of watching the truck fill up--what could be sweeter?

Most of our relay centers brought their cartons to our Erie collection center this afternoon and it was so much fun to talk to everyone and watch the totals climb. I've been using my calculator all day and trying to 'crunch' the numbers but I still don't have totals from the Warren collection center so the mystery continues.

This is definitely worse than waiting on Christmas Eve.

Still, there are some great stories of increases. My favorite came in Corry. Last year was Becky Foster's first year as a relay center coordinator and they took in a great total of 462 boxes, but THIS year their total was an astonishing 1,002--a 217% increase!

My favorite story of the day came when I took a plastic container out of a car that I assumed was a shoebox gift. When I looked more closely I realized it was kitty litter! Whew--that was a close one. Can you imagine the stir that would have caused at the processing center?

On this perfect seventh day I'm still waiting (im)patiently.