Sharpening the Deal

Our Operation Christmas Child team coordinators met today and did some preliminary planning for the 2018 packing party.  I prayed hard about this meeting--wanting it to be a time of unity in making some productive decisions.

We talked about a goal for this year and decided to trust God for 30,000 boxes.  This is a big jump over last year's 28,032.  That's 2,000 more boxes to fold and 2,000 more boxes to fill with items and 2,000 more boxes for which we need to pray in the shipping funds. 

At the same time I realize we have fewer items now than we did at this point last year.  Last year in addition to the anchor items of hats and visors I already had over 10,000 nice belts and 30,000 packages of shoelaces along with nearly 3,000 nice, new, large stuffed bunnies. 

This year we have almost enough visors but are pretty lean in the filler department.  Part of the time I think God is just waiting until the weather gets better to bless us with the items He knows we need and....well, the rest of the time I just wonder. 

I do know our God is well able to supply every need if He wants us to pack 30,000 boxes.  And if He doesn't want us to pack that many then I don't want to pack them either. 

Being a bit desperate for SOME sort of filler item, I saw these pencil sharpeners from Oriental Trading.  I know the quality's not the greatest with the caps likely to keep falling off.  In the past when we used them we had to tape the dome lids on them, and I don't want to bother with that!  I generally stay away from small items that don't take up much room in the box, but I thought about putting these into plastic Easter eggs.  They'd be more useful than the small rings or stickers we often use. 

The sharpeners were listed at $2.97 for a lot of 72--over 4 cents each--which is way too much for a small item. 

So, I decided to sharpen the deal.  I found a promo code that would give me free shipping and $10 off on a $49 order.  Then I found a site where I could buy Oriental Trading gift cards at a slightly reduced price and used a special deal going on to get another $10 off.  I also went through eBates to save another $3.15. 

In the end, I got the price down to 2.9 cents each and bought 3,816 of the sharpeners.  That will at least give us a start on egg-fillers.  Now all we have to do is pray we can find the eggs in the after-Easter sales! 

Item by item we're trusting God for the deals...oh, and sharpen up your prayer skills because we're asking you to join us again to pray for 27,000 more stuffed animals...

Unusual Answers to Prayer

 Sometimes the answers to prayer come in unusual ways.  Praying for stuffed animals has been the saga of my life for more than a decade, and it's always amazing to see the way God answers.

On Tuesday we were shoveling out from the latest round of snow when the call came from a generous donor who wanted to bring 1100 stuffed animals over.  I was scheduled to volunteer at a local clothing pantry, so we made arrangements for them to bring the animals in late afternoon.

This donation--a wonderful answer to prayer--should have made me deliriously happy.  Instead, as I hauled the bags into my living room I felt a cloud of resentment settle over me.  I didn't want my living room filled with bags--even if they did hold treasured blessings.  Furthermore, I didn't want to tackle the job of sorting and bagging those animals.  So I shoved the bags into spare bedrooms and sulked around the house for a few hours, knowing that wouldn't really solve anything.

The next morning I was honest with God and confessed me lack of gratitude for His good gifts. I asked him to change my attitude because I felt powerless to do that myself.

Within an hour I was on my way to pray with a friend when I realized God was answering my prayer. My spirit felt more buoyant.  At the same time, I kept feeling an urge to call a fellow team member and ask her to help me.  I pulled the car over, sent a text, and her quick response told me she'd be glad to join the sorting adventure.

A few hours later we spent some time in prayer together before we we tackled the stuffed animals. What a great time of fellowship and prayer we enjoyed.  It turns out that was something we both needed.

By the next day the animal sorting was nearly finished.  The weather was a balmy 59 degrees but the weather prediction called for a sudden drop in temperatures and an ice storm within a few hours.  I was desperate to get the animals out of the house and my husband was kind enough to quickly help me finish bagging them.  Just as we got them loaded into the car the cold rain started.  Despite that, we got to the container, shoveled the remnants of snow from the door, and got them stashed.

God's grace astounds me as He answers my prayers again and again--first with His provision of my material needs and then His amazing grace over my helplessness to change my sinful attitudes.  And in the middle of it all He grants this sweet fellowship with other believers and, most especially, with Him.

And while I was trying to motivate myself to complete my little task, a steadfast servant on the other side of town was tirelessly cutting rope to make jump ropes.  By the end of the weekend he'd cut 21 rolls of rope into 3,675 pieces.  Now we're ready to make them into ropes on our first work day on February 21st.

Thank You, Lord, for answering prayer in ways I never could imagine.

Cups--Empty, Full or Half-Full

The holiday respite is over and it's time to start more concentrated strategizing for our 2018 Operation Christmas Child packing party.  We don't even know when it will be yet, because we have to wait for OCC to set the shipping windows before we can plan a date.

Still, the buying has been going on for months already.  See these Hello Kitty crowns? I love them, but many of the packers at our 2017 packing party had problems fitting them into the boxes. Nevertheless, I made the decision to buy 12,000 of them for this year's boxes because they are inexpensive and fun.

We pray all the time and struggle over when to buy items and when to wait for a better deal to come along.  It seems like when I pray for direction I should always make the right decision, but it doesn't always work that way--at least from my limited human perspective.

Case in point--cups.  In 2017 we had 10,000 plastic cups left over from 2016 and we just about used them up.  When I saw a deal on them some weeks ago I prayed about whether to buy them and how many to buy. I checked with other core team members and said that since we have thousands more visors than baseball hats this year I felt we'd need more cups to fill boxes.  I prayed, but maybe not enough, before I decided to purchase 4 pallets of them--about 16,000 cups.  This week the price on them dropped.  I could have saved $176.00 if I'd waited.  Was it my mistake?

On the other hand, there were times when I delayed buying as I waited for a price to drop only to have the stock of the item deplete and lose the bargain entirely. It's hard to tell if the cups are empty or full, you know?

Then there are the washcloths.  Last year there were 18-packs of washcloths on sale at holiday clearance prices at Walmart.  I saw the same ones in the store this year and started praying a few weeks before Christmas about whether to buy them at 50% off right after Christmas or wait for them to be reduced to 75% off.

To my chagrin this year they were not reduced with the rest of the holiday merchandise. I waited until Walmart's prices dropped to 75% off on Christmas merchandise, prayed hard, and talked with the managers at three Walmart stores.  I explained they said "holiday" beside the UPC code and had been reduced with the Christmas merchandise in 2017.  Two stores reduced them to 75% off for me and the other store reduced them by 50%.  God provided 1,476 washcloths for an average of .08 each.  That day my cup was definitely full.

Meanwhile, a donor from our team purchased our pens at what we hope was a good price. We're still praying for a good deal on pencils and all the filler items we will need.

The stuffed animal count stands at about 2,500--fewer than last year at this point.  The team member who stored many of them in her home last year is no longer on our team so they're stuck on the floor of the storage container for now--that cup is kind of half-full.

It's overwhelming to think how many items we need to make boxes good enough and full enough to bless children.

We know, though, that we serve a God who fills our cups to overflowing--no matter how they appear to us.  So we'll keep praying and waiting to be filled.