Three Week Stretch and Oh-Ohs

THREE WEEKS from now another victory will be in the books and our 9th Community-Wide Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Packing Party will be over. But right now I feel kind of like this little girl looks.

There are a lot of "oh-oh" moments in my life these days. I'm spending a lot of time on menial tasks I've managed to avoid all year like sorting and bagging the generic crayons that were donated last December and will be used as extra fillers because the quality of the crayons is not the best.  Two cartons of boxes of 64 crayons (probably from the dollar store) have been sitting in a spare bedroom for eight months...but NOW I have to take care of them.

Another day this week I worked on dolls and stuffed animals I've been putting aside over the past weeks because they need extra attention--changing batteries, combing hair, removing stains.

It's time-consuming stuff and it gives me those "oh-ohs" when I think I probably should be doing something to recruit more volunteers or figuring out some new publicity angles--something besides sorting and washing stuffed animals and finishing projects.

I just did another tally and it looks like we still need 4,666 animals (well, then I found one drying on top of the washer so I guess it's 4,665 which sounds like a better number.)

Maybe I should have recruited more people to pray for volunteers instead of stuffed animals?  Still, it will be nice to have enough animals to put one in each box.  A woman called on Thursday morning and said she has a large collection of new beanie babies and is moving to a smaller home.  She is having an estate sale and wants to sell some of her collection but promised to donate "at least 1,000" to us.  I'm praying God convicts her to give us even more.  Stay tuned for the rest of that story.

Speaking of Thursday, we had our final packing party work day and finished making all the jump ropes and bagged all but 34 cases of crayons.  The remaining 34 were farmed out for volunteers to complete at home.

Another thing we're praying is for God to provide donations to ship our boxes.  We have a fundraising page through Samaritan's Purse but have only raised a bit over $1100 so far. If you'd like to donate (goes directly to Samaritan's Purse) you can click here.https://www.classy.org/fundraiser/1054305

So...in the next 21 days we just have to: retrieve, haul, and stage all the items; pray in 600 volunteers; fold 27,000 boxes...and then pack them.

It's a stretch, but you just watch--God will make it happen.