Meandering to Meadville

Today Heather Rogers (my Operation Christmas Child Church Relations Coordinator) and I took the show on the road again.  We drove to Meadville for an OCC Celebration Event there.

The day was gorgeous--maybe too gorgeous for people to want to come to a meeting--but we had 14 shoe box enthusiasts who joined us to hear more about the ministry and get geared up for making an eternal difference in the lives of thousands of children again this year.

Pictured above is our faithful Relay Center Coordinator, Cindy Woolstrum, who hosted the event at Meadville CMA Church.   She is holding a copy of the certificate we presented to each church who packed 100 or more shoe boxes in 2012.

Here are Cindy and Heather flanking the sign announcing year-round volunteer opportunities with Operation Christmas Child.  It's a privilege to serve the Lord in this ministry and I'm so blessed to be associated with it.  I think people should be beating down the door for the chance to join our team.  But they aren't!

We didn't give out any applications today but we're still trusting God to build our team in His way and His time.

Meanwhile, today was a joyous time of celebration as we praised God and shared ideas for increasing gospel opportunities from our region.   It's amazing to realize that if each participating church in our three-county area would just pack 20 more boxes we'd reach our goal of 5,000 more boxes for a total of 45,000 in 2013.  It would take so little to reach so many more children with God's love.

And so many children are still waiting.  If the 100 million Operation Christmas Child boxes packed over the past 20 years were all put together they would only reach 5% of the children in the world right now.

Jesus said we need to become like children to enter the Kingdom of God.  And who could be more childlike than children!

My mind is meandering down trails of ideas for getting a gospel opportunity to more of these sweet waiting kids.