After months of blog posts, our 2015 Operation Christmas Child packing party is almost here. It's 1:16 am and I'm too excited to sleep because...it's Packing Party Eve Eve.
Tomorrow morning we warm up when two groups of school students come to pack shoeboxes for a few hours in the morning.
It's been a pretty intense week of preparation.
We found out just a week ago that our long-prayed-for delivery of frisbees and jump rope handles (to make our ropes for next year) was coming earlier than expected. The truck arrived last Saturday amid a bonafide deluge of rain. A lack of storage forced us to pile them on pallets outside and cover them with a tarp.
In the picture above you can see that didn't work out so well. When we brought the frisbees in yesterday, the boxes were soggy. Today we realized the frisbees inside are also wet, so now they are scattered on tables around our shoebox packing party room so they can dry before being put into the boxes. Oy vey.
On Sunday we were scheduled to unload our storage container. Generally we start this right after the first service at church when there are plenty of volunteers around. This year there was a scheduling conflict so we had to wait until 1:00 pm. Still, God supplied us with 19 people to get the job done in 1.5 hours.
Monday brought the delivery of 13 pallets of supplies to get placed.
The trucking company didn't do a great job of loading the truck and placed pallets on top of pallets. Quite the challenge. The guys even had to remove the door closures and replace them later in order to get the pallets into the building. Again...oy vey.
On Tuesday the box labeling began in earnest. And in just 2.5 days all but 35 of the 256 cases have been successfully labeled and readied for packing.
Then there was flip-flop sorting and unpacking of baseball hats and visors (both were packed in boxes within boxes that needed to be removed.) The newly-rented dumpster is already burgeoning with cardboard.
By the end of this Thursday evening, though, we look almost ready. So much so that I am excited and waiting for good times to begin tomorrow.
I should probably go back to bed. And sleep. But...who can sleep when it's Packing Party Eve Eve?
Oh, what a fabulous day for the kingdom tomorrow will be! For every frisbee, stuffed toy, toothbrush, washcloth, car etc.... there will be a smile on the face of a precious child. And a receptive hear to the gospel!
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