Showers of Blessings

Not gonna lie--I've struggled a lot over the years to build my team since I became area coordinator for Operation Christmas Child here in northwestern PA in 2007.

But right now, in this week, I feel God has opened a window of heaven to pour out blessings on us.

I wrote last Friday about how the sun shone through for our truck delivery on Friday.  That was a true blessing because on Saturday it was back to rain all day.  I was able to go to a few yard sales on Saturday morning and got 55 stuffed animals before I had to head out of town for a baby shower (appropriate weather for a shower, eh?)

On my way back home I stopped at a Children's Place outlet and scored 13 pairs of adorable flip-flops on sale for .99 each--

and I stopped to pick up my Fed Ex packages also and got a shipment of 240 boxes of cute princess bandages for shoeboxes.

Saturday's best blessing, though, came that evening.  A friend who is also on our OCC area team hosted an open house for visiting missionaries.  While there, I was talking with a staff member from our church about my need for more storage for our shoebox items.  I've been praying about this for some time now.  Well...he and his wife own a rental property that has a garage, and they offered to let us store our overflow there.  What a wonderful answer to prayer!

On Sunday the weather was--rainy--again.  But I was excited at church to find bags of stuffed animals had been left at the welcome center.  I found the donor.  She was beaming with smiles as she told of visiting yard sales on Saturday (the ones I'd missed by leaving town) and getting a haul of animals.  Some people already had their animals set aside and were just waiting for someone to come by and pick them up for Operation Christmas Child.  What a blessing it was for Donna to obey the Lord and go to garage sales in the rain.

Today was a sunny Monday and the blessings just kept coming.  The picture at the top of this blog shows the dear group of women who are part of the Women's Connection ministry at our Erie City Mission.  We had an Operation Christmas Child packing party today and they completed 101 boxes to bless children around the world.  I know God will use those special boxes in a mighty way for His purpose.

The afternoon was filled with sorting leftover packing party items as well as enjoying a great phone call with my OCC regional director Leigh Fisher.

The fun wasn't over yet as I had dinner with my two new co-Network Coordinators and spent some time doing training with them.  We've been praying for God to fill this position for years so it's almost surreal to see all those prayers answered.

Then I got a call from Jane Dennington, former missionary to Haiti and a member of our church relations team.  Jane is the missionary speaker this week at a Bible camp.  Today she spoke to 200 children and parents about OCC and was able to send home materials to five new prospective churches.  She also connected with camp counselors who are college students and want to pursue involvement with OCC and one adult who's interested in volunteering on our area team.

I can hardly wait to wake up and see what God does tomorrow.

Bountiful Blessings

This was a day of bountiful blessings.  I started the day at an early morning church rummage sale where I found not only 67 nice stuffed animals but also 6 brand new indoor/outdoor chair cushions that I hope will bless my daughter who needs them for her recycled patio furniture.

Then I met my Operation Christmas Child team media coordinator, Pam, for a free breakfast at Chick-fil-A (thank you Chick-fil-A Erie for having your Facebook Friday freebie be my favorite bagel sandwich.)

While there, we got a call from my church that a delivery truck had arrived with the two pallets of pens we ordered.  I'd been praying about this delivery because the weather's been crazy and I really didn't want the shipment to be rain-sogged.

We headed to the church and the weather stayed sunny and breezy while we unloaded and stored our loot.  I was especially blessed by Pam who not only donated pens but was also willing to stash them in her little vehicle and take them home to store in her basement.

Will they fit, we wondered?

Well, yes (80% of them anyway)

With a little more finagling, we got the boxes of items I brought from home stowed in the container also.  There is one little hitch, though.

We are just about out of room.  And we have five pallets with 240 cases of soap arriving in a few days.  So we need to move at least half of these cartons of jump rope handles to new homes.

I'm hatching a new plan to put a plea on Facebook for local families to 'adopt' a few boxes of these jump rope handles and at least store them.  Even better, they could put rope into the handles to make the actual jump ropes and then store them for our packing party in September.

Sometimes the blessings are so bountiful you just don't know what to do with them all...

One Thousand By One Thousand

Yes, I know what you're thinking.  How many pictures of stuffed animals can she put on this blog?  It's probably not normal for a grown woman to spend so much time obsessing about plush toys, but I never claimed to be normal.

Last week I rejoiced to receive a donation of 350 brand new Beanie Babies. Then after a few weeks of hiatus I was finally able to hit the weekend safari trail again and was blessed with 288 stuffed animals.  Now I'm back in the sorting and storing saddle.

I did a quick tally a few days ago and was excited to realize that I have about the same number of stuffed animals as I had at this time last year--just under 5,000.  I know that seems a long way from the goal of 25,000 by September 18th.  God's at work, though.

Today I was frantically organizing shoebox items in my efforts to clean the house for our Operation Christmas Child area team meeting tonight.  Those efforts were happily interrupted when I got the call to pick up a donation of more of those lovely Beanie Babies.  Off I went and returned with another 300 brand new animals.  So...in the past week God has provided almost 1,000.

Interruptions aside, I did get the house presentable for tonight's meeting.  Best of all, cleaning was my only preparation.  My prayer coordinator led the meeting and did a fantastic presentation on fruitfulness and multiplication.  It's amazing to think how fast our team could grow if everyone caught the vision of multiplication.

And if I could get these animals to multiply...we'd be all set.

Marching In The Shadows

Most of the time this blog is all about packing shoebox gifts for children around the world through Operation Christmas Child.  Today, though, I want to talk about a meaningful opportunity I had today to participate in the All Lives Matter March.

I grew up in Wesleyville--a small suburb of Erie, PA--in the 1950s.  I attended Wesleyville School where students in grades K-12 were all together in one building with about 50 in each grade.  We had no school buses because everyone in our small community walked to school and there was no cafeteria because we all went home for lunch.

As I recall, there were two African-American families in Wesleyville, so there were only a handful of  kids "of color" in our school and I was in high school before one of those families came to attend our church.

I'm still trying to overcome those 'white' beginnings.  I know racial reconciliation is important but I find I'm still too often segregated in my daily life.

Last week I volunteered for the fourth year at a week-long camp hosted by our Erie City Mission for middle schoolers.  The camp was held in an inner-city public school and in our week together I worked with six students and five adult volunteers to produce a newspaper.  

Yesterday I was mulling over the week's experience and wondered what effect it had.  No kids prayed with me and I can't even say their writing improved over the week.  What did happen, though, is that 11 people from different countries of birth, from different areas of our city, with different skin colors, and with ages spanning from 11-62 came together to create an artistic production.  We became a team, and maybe that was the effect.   Maybe the most important thing was just being together.

Today, my husband and I joined a few hundred others on this Father's Day in a silent march to affirm that all lives matter--a march to bridge racial barriers and unite to end violence in our community.

We formed a long line on the city sidewalk and trudged along--walking quietly and prayerfully through some declining neighborhoods and over a major highway toward Shiloh Baptist Church.  As our shadows stretched ahead of us I thought of how we were walking in a very small way in the shadows of marches that took place a half century ago.  How much progress has been made in those fifty years?  

When we arrived at the church we filed in and crammed the pews, then the worship experience began.  It wasn't my first time to worship in an African-American church but it was one of only a handful.  Looking at the mixed crowd, the pastor leading the service said, "Wouldn't it be great if every Sunday was like this?" and he was answered with rousing applause.

Various members of the community--victims of violence, business leaders affected by violence, politicians, the district attorney, and a captain from the police department--came one by one to offer remarks and each was followed by a clergyman or layman offering Scripture and prayer.

Two hours later we were nearing the end.  The pastor called us to the altar--no, insisted we all come to the altar--to join in prayer for our community.  It was really moving to join hands with African-American brothers and agree in prayer, begging God to do what only He can do among us.

I won't be here fifty years from now, but if God tarries that long I hope there won't be any need for marches against violence in our city.  I hope there won't be racial division that necessitates calls for unity.  I hope we'll make progress.

At least tonight we made a start.

Slumps

I guess I've been in a blogging slump.  This is the longest I've gone without updating this blog in quite some time.

I'm also in a safari slump.  My normal Saturday stuffed animal safaris have been interrupted by other worthy plans on quite a few Saturdays already this year--travel to Colombia, family vacation, Operation Christmas Child training, and family commitments have kept me off the yard sale route week after week.

God keeps providing, regardless.  I've made monthly trips to a thrift store, getting over 100 animals on each trip, and bags of donations keep arriving.

Still, I'm lacking 20,000 stuffed animals and our packing party is just over three months away.

Yesterday had me sending an e-mail to a nearby company that sells the kind of stuffed animals you find as prizes at amusement parks.  They aren't the greatest quality but I could buy some smaller ones for .30 - .55 each.  Then I'd need to add in the shipping.  I'll keep praying and investigating.

I also called another company yesterday to inquire about pricing for 165,000 feet of rope to make jump ropes.  It's kind of astounding how quickly the totals add up.  Next I need to work on ordering a ton (or more, literally) of soap.

Our team has a motto, "We never do the same thing twice."  It seems God is always coming up with new ways to bring us the items we need to fill the boxes.  True to form, He's opened doors and led us to some new suppliers already this year.

I've been working hard at one thing after another--filling Easter eggs with rings and bracelets for fillers, untangling nice jewelry I bought in clumps at a local store...well, there are lots of stories to tell that I just haven't been telling during this blogging slump.

But...it's time to get out of the slump.  It's also time to organize a meeting for the core team who will organize the upcoming packing party.

Because time waits for no slump.