And the Number Was? Is?...

What a crazy day of Operation Christmas Child blessings.  I haven't really been keeping a running tally of our shoe box numbers and though I knew our numbers were up at our collection centers I wasn't sure how close we were to the goal of 45,000 boxes we've been praying for all year.

I got a text late this morning with an update from our Erie Collection Center with good numbers but still hadn't heard from the Warren Collection Center.

Then I got distracted with a couple of live lice I found in someone's head and kind of forgot about shoe boxes for an hour or so.

But near the end of my work day the call came from Warren and I did a little rejoicing there in my school nurse's office as I knew God had answered our prayers.

I went home and was ready to make posters to announce the total at our Chick-fil-A celebration when I got a call that more boxes were on the way to the collection center.  Another call confirmed that 298 boxes were added to the total so I made the posters, went to Chick-fil-A, ate a great meal (including the free yummy cookies CFA blessed us with) and then, according to our tradition, opened the folders showing the last digit first (9), then the fourth digit (6), then the third (2)----and then after the count of three--revealed the first and second digits (4) and (7)

But that's not all---

A call came in while were were at Chick-fil-A that one of our relay centers just received another load of boxes.  They were nearly an hour away and had already dropped off all their boxes and cartons. But they graciously drove the boxes to Erie.

Our Erie collection coordinator, Seph, and my husband and I left CFA and headed back to the collection center.  When Cindy and John Catlin came with the load of boxes they were nice enough to stay to help us cartonize them and get them on the truck--all 226 of them.

So the revised total now stands at--

47, 495

And the truck hasn't left yet.

WOW!  We stand amazed!