Blessings From Afar

 Look at the great packages I found today when I got home from school.  Two came from my friend Heather in Iowa and two from my friend Diane and her buddies in Colorado.

I love how God is bringing these blessings to me from across the country for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.

On Monday 10 cartons arrived from Heather in Iowa.  She told me months ago that she'd love to send donations to help with our packing party if we ever found anyone coming through Iowa who could pick them up.  Well, one of our team members made a connection a week ago and last Friday sweet Heather made a two-hour drive from Des Moines to Cedar Rapids to deliver those cartons containing not only toys but 6000 more pencils and a promise of 2000 more to come.

Here are the cartons that came from Heather today with more toys and beautiful socks and tote bags.

And when I opened the cartons from Diane in Colorado, this is what I found--some pristine Beanie Babies and another 1440 pencils.

Speaking of pencils--less than a week ago I lacked 23,000 of them.  Then came Heather's 6000 and Diane's 1440 and another 1700 from Terri.  I also ordered 10,000 pencils online--the cost of half of them was covered by donations made by the children and adults of Hill Memorial United Methodist Church in Bradford, PA who made buying pencils their VBS mission project.

So now, if my count is right, I have over 36,000 of them.  And Heather has another 2000 coming my way.  And I hear there's another box with pencils coming from Colorado in my future.

In just a week God's moved us almost to that goal of 40,000 pencils.

And today my friend Ellen (who was in charge of collecting money and pencils for the VBS I mentioned above) told me she heard that each pencil can provide 35 miles of writing.

This means 40,000 pencils will give 1,400,000 miles of education and communication and joy.

These blessings from afar will go far indeed.