On the Sixth Day

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

I left my house at 8:30 am this morning and didn't get home until 5:15 pm. I traveled 150 miles to visit four relay/collection centers for our Operation Christmas Child collection week. What a blessing it was to see so many volunteers united to bring in these simple shoeboxes.

When I got to Waterford, relay center coordinator Kim Kinnear and her team had run out of stuffed animals and fillers for the boxes they were packing. Well, I had several bags of those in the car and left them there. They quickly got back to packing.

I drove on to Corry where Becky Foster is the relay center coordinator. They had a packing party last night but stopped packing with 335 packed because they ran out of soap and toothpaste. Their original goal had only been 250 for their packing party but they had TONS of great stuff still left! I told them it's okay to pack a box without toothpaste and soap as long as you have a good variety of items and can fill the boxes. They were low on boxes but I had some of them in the car, too. So we set to work and packed another 49 boxes. Last year they did 462 boxes and this year they have 894 already! Needless to say, they are out of cartons--isn't that great!

I drove on to Warren, where one truck is 3/4 full and Patti Seth is doing a great job and then to North East relay where coordinator Bryon Switala was working and his wife, Joy, had everything under control It was great to talk with her and pray over the cartons there.

We're trying to juggle cartons from one place to another and don't know where we stand BUT we know our sovereign God has great plans for ALL of us. We are so, so blessed.

There are more than SIX singing spirits in the Northwestern PA OCC world.

PS--I was determined to take real updated pictures today but I forgot my camera (sigh)