Pallet Praises

Yes, this picture looks like it could show competing shoppers at some type of sidewalk sale.  But...it's really a picture of servant-hearted volunteers who are working in nearly 90-degree weather to store six pallets of clothing for our Operation Christmas Child packing party...yes, you read that right...SIX pallets.

Yesterday the truck delivery company called to schedule a delivery sometime from 10am - 3pm today.  I always hate those long delivery windows since I live 6.5 miles from my church and have to depend on the truck driver to call me before delivery.

I also had plans for lunch with my siblings today, so I was praying for an early delivery.  Instead, I got the call at 2:30 pm, called my faithful sidekick Pam, and headed for the church.

The truck driver arrived promptly, got the lift gate in place, and started to unload the pallets--first one, then another.  And...then...more.

To my surprise they kept coming until the area in front of our storage container looked like this:

I never realized 2500 assorted fashion accessories (the description said, "may include ponchos, vests, etc.) would take up so much space.  Almost all of these items turned out to be pretty bulky--cable knitted sweater vests, cute beaded boleros, and even satin princess capes.

As you can see, most of these were in large pallet boxes that completely filled each pallet and couldn't be moved into the storage container.  Pam and I sighed.  Then we opened a smaller carton and found some cute hats that Pam couldn't wait to model.

Just as we started to open the pallet boxes and investigate all these goodies, Donna showed up.  She said she'd heard we were having a delivery and wondered if we needed help.  Help might be a "four letter word" in our Operation Christmas Child high-impact training, but we needed HELP.  Yes, we did!  And God knew just when to send Donna.

How would we store these items in the container?  Well...since it was late in the afternoon I called my husband and found he was just leaving his job.  I begged him to stop at home and get the plastic totes I'd taken home to save space in the container, and he agreed.

Fifteen minutes later it was apparent that we'd need more than the storage totes I had at home.  I called him again, caught him before he left our house,  and told him to bring garbage bags.

And then we started moving those 2500 blessings into boxes and totes and bags.  Two hours later, sunburned and exhausted and praising God for avoiding heatstroke, we finally closed the storage container.

I'm praising God for all these items delivered in plenty of time to be packed into boxes at our upcoming packing party to bless children.  I'm praising God for knowing what I needed when I did not and delaying the arrival of that truck so we could have the extra help we needed.  I'm praising God that it all fit into the storage container with about a square yard of space to spare.

And I'm praising God for those empty pallets.