Praise in the Winning and Losing

Today was another great but tiring day at the Operation Christmas Child processing center.  I'm still trying to figure out what I should be doing from hour to hour.  Not having a plan can really make me crazy.

It also makes me crazy when I have a plan that doesn't seem to work out.

After two days of waiting I finally got the message I'd been waiting for this afternoon--the message with the total of boxes shipped out on the trucks for this OCC season from my area of Northwestern PA.

As soon as I read the message I thought of the line from my favorite movie,"Facing The Giants".  On the eve of the big football game the coach says, "If we win we're gonna praise Him and if we lose we're gonna praise Him."

Last year God surprised us when our team collected 47,604 boxes--way beyond our prayed-for goal of 45,000

This year God surprised us when our team collected 43,554 boxes--way, way below our prayed-for goal of 55,700 and 4,150 fewer than we collected last year.  I have to admit that going 22% below our goal was quite a shock.

Still, 43,554 boxes are a real gift from God and we are blessed to be able to partner with God to send a gospel opportunity to so many children.

Now we pray for more boxes to come in from other donors who can still bring them to processing centers, mail them to Boone, NC, or go online to www.samaritanspurse.org/occ to pay to "build a box" online.

God has a plan to bless children with these boxes and we will keep praying for even more to be blessed and...

We're gonna praise Him!