His Story & History

There were two big events in our lives this week--one in our family and one in our city.

The family event has been years in the making.  My mother was 39-years-old when I was born, and when I gave birth to my first daughter at age 25 I felt a bit sad that her grandmother was already old. (I had a different perspective then--lol)  Funny thing is--my mother lived to age 101, was pretty vibrant up until her last few months and made decades of memories with my daughters.

I was approaching my 65th birthday when I heard the joyful news that our daughter was pregnant again.  After years of prayer, two miscarriages, and babies only in heaven, she waited for some months to make that joyful but sensitive announcement.  She did it by displaying a hand-printed onesie on Facebook with this reference from 1 Samuel 1:27 "For this boy I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him."

Jen and her husband, Jeremy, decided not to learn the gender of their baby until birth and our excitement grew month by month.  Jen purchased Christmas outfits for her baby--one for a boy and one for a girl. She was showered with many gender-neutral gifts and we looked toward celebrating with a new baby for Christmas. They refused to give any hints of potential names.

Her December 22nd due date came and went.  We made plans to go visit Jen and Jeremy for Christmas dinner since they couldn't travel to be with Jeremy's family.

But Christmas Eve marked the start of this week's history-making event in our city.  The snow began with just a few inches on Christmas Eve, and by the time we planned to leave for Jen's home in Ellwood City on Christmas morning we could barely see across the street and driving was too dangerous.

The snow didn't stop, and by Christmas night a record 34 inches had fallen.  We shoveled and ran the snow blower only to get hit with another 19 inches in early morning hours of December 26th.

On the morning of December 26th we were out trying to clear that latest accumulation when we got a call from Jen telling us they were inducing her labor at 1:00 pm.  We hurried to complete the snow removal as best we could, packed a bag, and took off.

The front of our house in the midst of snow removal.

These are pictures taken from other areas in our city. It was a crazy mess!

The streets were mostly unplowed and rutted.  It was like driving over moon craters, but once we got to the main highway we could safely and SLOWLY make our way.  We drove about 35 mph on the interstate (they'd lowered the speed limit to 45 mph but we couldn't get up to that.)

Amazingly, once we got about 15 miles away from Erie the highway was perfectly clear and we made good time.

I'd been praying over every detail of this baby's birth for months--years really--and it was such a blessing to see how God answered in every way.

The baby's heart rate had some decelerations so they had to stop the induction from time to time and monitor the baby continuously.

We'd been waiting for hours in the waiting room with Jeremy's parents when I got a text a little before 11 pm with the report that Jen was at 5 cm. and contractions were getting harder. I replied that if Jeremy wanted a break I could come in.  When I got the answer "You can come in anytime," I was down the hall pronto.

In my pre-shoebox life I taught childbirth education classes for 19 years, and I was so proud and impressed at how well Jeremy and Jen worked together to labor as a team.  Jeremy was a tireless coach, she breathed like a champ, and I got to cheer them on and offer some support with cool cloths and counter pressure on her back.  And she did this without an epidural, which I later learned is pretty rare these days.

Three hours later she was able to push and in just half an hour our beautiful grandson burst into the world. It turns out the umbilical cord was around his neck and that was causing the drops in his heart rate throughout the day.  Thank You, Lord for protecting him through that rigorous journey of birth.
He needed some extra suctioning to get started in life but was soon crying and weighed in at 6 pounds, 11 ounces.  I took some pictures then headed back to the waiting room.  I'd been sworn to secrecy so Jeremy could come and make the announcement to all the grandparents at once. And they still refused to tell me the baby's name.

Back in the waiting room the other grandparents threatened to torture me but ended up waiting patiently until Jeremy came to make the announcement, "It's a boy. And his name is Samuel James."

Hannah named her son Samuel, which means "God has heard".  God heard Hannah's prayers and God heard Jen and Jeremy's prayers and the prayers of countless family and friends who have prayed for this baby.  I pray our Samuel, like Hannah's Samuel, will hear God call him at a young age and will serve Him faithfully.

Meanwhile, by noon on Wednesday our city measured a total of 65.1 inches of snow since Sunday night.  And they're predicting another foot or so this weekend.  Once you get past FIVE FEET what's another foot?

It just makes the story better.

Peaceful Processing Procrastination

Well...the procrastination part is the fact that I waited so long to get this blog entry posted. time somehow rolled on.

We were blessed to be able to volunteer at the Baltimore Processing Center from December 4th - 9th this year. We've been there two seasons as full-time employees but I have to say volunteering is a lot more fun.  It's great to be able to try different areas and have the luxury of talking to so many interesting people.

We arrived on December 4th and went over to the PC just to drop off the 61straggler boxes we'd brought from our area, but...they had spaces available and so we just had to stay for five hours--lol.

On Tuesday morning we were blessed to work with Kati Sturgis and her friend who'd traveled from our area to volunteer for the first time.  One of the boxes Kati inspected that day had a digital camera in it!  We're praying it goes to just the right child...

We took a break in the afternoon and went back to rest at our hotel before returning from 6-10 that evening. By the time Tuesday night came my feet and legs hurt so much from standing I was worried I wouldn't be able to make it through the week.  Thankfully, my prayers and Ibuprofen helped me turn the corner on Wednesday--or maybe I just got numb?

We came across some really interesting boxes--some had unusual shapes and some had unusual items like this set of some sort of blocks in a plastic bag that only filled half of the large cardboard box they were packed in.  We found a bunch of fun items to fill it up.

Someone even sent this giant dump truck and taped an open GO box over it. Showing their dedication to "the integrity of the box" the staff found a box to fit it and tucked a few other items in with it.  Only God knows the story behind that one!

Several boxes came through that were so pretty--decorated with pictures covered with decoupage on the lid and the rest of the box covered with decorative duct tape.

My favorite part of our week at the PC, though, was meeting some new friends.

Mary and Sharon work as church relations volunteers in my region. I hope I get to see them again at the Connect Conference.  While we inspected boxes we chatted about the struggle to get churches involved and to keep them involved in packing boxes.  

We also enjoyed working on two days with this family who flew in from Michigan to volunteer. Their youngest daughter had a real knack for carbonizing boxes and my husband loved mentoring her in that process.

Stephanie is a fairly new area coordinator from Brooklyn.  My daughter lives in Brooklyn so we chatted about that area and the highs and lows of Operation Christmas Child promotion there.

On our last two days there we were blessed to inspect some boxes packed from our area. It was fun to be able to send them pictures and tell them their boxes were going to Colombia and/or Kenya.

On our last day I was able to spend some time in the "Inappropriate" area.  All items that must be removed from boxes as inappropriate are donated to local charities.  We sure gave them a LOT of toothpaste and candy this year--lol.

As we left the PC on Saturday night Jim said, "It's really hard to leave."  My thoughts exactly.  Thankfully, Connie, our Mid-Atlantic Regional Manager who worked as the 2nd shift PC Manager posted a picture of the tote board at the end of the processing season so we could see the countries where all those precious boxes were shipped.

We praise God for all the staff and volunteers who got the job done and continue to pray for the children who will be receiving these boxes in months to come.

Peace to all! 

Catching Up and Sorting and Snipping

Two weeks ago I was wondering if I was finished with my 2017 shoeboxes and now I'm knee deep in preparing for 2018 boxes.  Crazy!

So...back on November 18th I thought I might be done packing. On Sunday morning, November 19th, I woke and decided I needed to pack 9 more boxes to give me 28,888 as the grand total from the packing party boxes and the post-packing-party boxes.  I scrounged up every available item--even dipped into the sample boxes I use when I speak about Operation Christmas Child. I started to clean up the leftover items and left for church feeling I'd done all I could.

But...then...I discovered someone had left donated items in the church office for me.  And someone left nine more nice empty boxes.  Surely that was a sign I wasn't done. So after church I tucked all those items into the boxes and put together another even dozen bringing the total to a nice round
28,900.

Monday turned out to be a hectic day at our Central Drop-Off site but I could tell we were far from the goal of 54,321 we'd been praying for all year.  When the three trucks were pulled on Tuesday the total came in at 50,388--just 86 more than our 2016 total.  It was only by God's grace and all the extra last-minute donations that we were able to send even that many.

God knows and He has plans to bless all the children who are waiting to hear about His love.

Fast forward to this week.  I thought it would be an easy week of resting up and getting ready to travel to volunteer at the processing center next week.

Instead, I was surprised by a steady stream of donations of stuffed animals. My husband said, "Why are they bringing them now?" Well, why not?

Over the first few days of the week I sorted, washed, and bagged more than 500 animals.  But I wasn't prepared for last night's delivery of 1500 plus!

I lined all the bags up against the couch and waited for morning light this morning to start the sorting.  I worked on them from 9:00 am until 5:30 pm (with a few Facebook breaks, of course.)  I've written before about the cleaning process, but I thought you might like to hear about the sorting.

The donors who brought all these bags said they'd already washed the animals, and that was a huge help.  Still, I had to inspect them. As I look over each animal, I check for any spots, tears, or flaws, and I always look carefully at the tags on them.  You can have a nice clean animal but if the tag is faded or frayed like the one in the picture then of course it doesn't look new.  So, I simply snip off the tag. The trick is to cut it as close to the fabric as possible without cutting the animal.  

Then the animals are thrown into piles around the living room according to size and whether they are for a girl or boy/either.  My sorting has gotten more specific over the past few years. There are piles for Beanie Baby-sized; medium or Webkin-sized; large ones that, in addition to basic items, will pretty much fill up a box for a 2-4 year old and medium-large ones that need only a few additional fillers. 

Here's part of the pile of tags that have been cut off.  I will also cut shirts or costumes off if they are faded or cut witch's hats off Halloween animals and also clip the ends of ribbons so they are fresh.

It's hard to find room in the living room for all the various piles--especially when you add in all the other piles--those that need to be washed, ones that need batteries, ones who need to have hair combed, ones that aren't suitable for special access boxes and are relegated to the Patriotic Praying Pig Pile.  And then there are those that don't make the cut for shoeboxes.  I take piles of them to our city mission's clothing pantry where I volunteer and they are scooped up by local folks.  

Once all the animals are separated into piles it's time to bag them up.  The Beanie-sized ones go 50 in a bag in smaller white trash bags while the medium Webkin-sized ones go 75 to a large black garbage bag.  The really large ones go in big clear trash bags and are hauled to the attic so they don't get mixed in.

My latest quandary is what to do with the medium-large ones because I've run out of places to keep them separate.  Might have to enlist another volunteer for that.  

So...2,000 animals by the beginning of December is a pretty good start.  I'm not sure yet what our goal will be for the 2018 packing party, but we probably only need another 26,500 or so.

We're catching up!