Fighting the Good Fight

It's funny how expectations can frame your experience. Because our packing party goal for this 11th year dropped down to 22,000 from last year's 30,590 I honestly thought this year would be a breeze. I anticipated a nice slow day and was even blessed to be able to have a full-circle speaker, Mariya Snizhko, come to share her story. I even anticipated we'd finish packing boxes early and be cleaned up and ready to leave before 4:00.

But I was wrong...

I should have known it could be more difficult than I thought when the Christian Life Academy students on Friday morning packed only half the number of boxes they packed other years.

I should have known it could be harder than I anticipated when our total at the end of Friday night was....

instead of the 10,400 we'd packed at the end of Friday night last year.  I knew we were packing more slowly (something that was actually one of our goals) but I didn't realize just how slowly.

I have to say I slept better this week than I have during any other packing party week I can remember. On the whole our team was amazing and worked so, so hard.

We ended Friday night with a whopping storm but Saturday morning dawned with clear blue skies. Our final Jericho prayer march around the building at 8:20 that morning was sweet--the easiest part of the day!

When we began our opening in the worship center there were only about 25 people. I prayed early that morning about whether we should have Mariya speak at the 9:00 opening so we didn't have to stop the line at 11:30 as we planned but the decision to wait was made easy when I saw how few people were there. In the opening I talked about Austin Drakulic's life and explained we were dedicating this packing party to his memory. I explained Austin's relationship with the Lord and challenged those who were there to have that saving relationship with Jesus too.

The packing began at 9:20 and by 10:00 we were only at...

When we stopped the line at 11:25 to usher everyone into the worship center to here Mariya speak we'd only packed...

and, truthfully, I was a bit alarmed.  I started praying earnestly for God to somehow bring us across the finish line that day. Mariya did an excellent job of sharing her story and how important that simple shoebox was in her life. At the end of her talk I prayed for her and for us and told God something like this, "You are the One who called us to this. We're trusting You to finish it."

After a short pep talk we started the line moving again. Someone asked me, "What will you do with all these boxes if you don't get them filled?" Good question! And I had no answers.

The lines kept moving around and around. By God's grace we had more volunteers than I ever remember having in the afternoon: many more than in the morning for sure. And I'm sure that's the result of God answering the many prayers of friends.

By 2:30 we were only 1.5 hours away from the official end of the packing party and our total stood at

It was hopeful but still SO FAR AWAY from 22,000. I wondered if it was a lack of faith or wisdom in planning that had my mind spinning with thoughts of what to do with 6,000 assembled but unfilled empty shoeboxes.

At 3:00 with one hour to go our total stood at

Amazingly, we the packing picked up speed in the afternoon. I think once we got to the bags of smaller beanie baby-sized stuffed animals it didn't take so much rearranging to fit things in the boxes. Plus, we still had a good crew of volunteers and that really blew me away. God's goodness was just so evident even as the idea of reaching the goal looked bleak.

When 4:00 came--the scheduled end of our packing party--our total stood at roughly 19,000 boxes. I yelled for the packers to stop for a moment and gave them the news...if we could keep packing for an hour just maybe we could bless another 3,000 children and make our goal. The crowd yelled their desire to "keep packing" and so we did.

My prediction that we could finish in an hour didn't materialize, though. At 5:35, over 1.5 hours AFTER the packing was supposed to be finished our total was at 

and it seemed we would still fall short. I can't praise those hardy volunteers enough, though. It was tempting to just quit at this point, even though the halls were still filled with boxes. But those shoebox packers wouldn't give in!!!  Some of us started cleaning up around them but they just KEPT PACKING!  At one point we ran out of stuffed animals and thought we'd have to stop but then I remembered a few bags of donated ones that were in my car. So volunteers quickly examined them and found they were good to use and KEPT PACKING!

FINALLY, at 6:15--over 2 hours after the scheduled end time--we realized we didn't have enough items to pack good boxes and knew it was time to stop. There were still a hundred or more folded boxes in the hallway and I had no idea if we'd met our goal.

I walked out to the truck and got the total number of cartons on that last one. Thankfully, the last boxes we packed filled a carton. There were 328 cartons on that 4th truck and 350 in each of the first three.

As that group of intrepid, steadfast, never-give-up packers looked on I used my phone's calculator to get the total number packed. I was amazed to see this number come up as our final total...

Yes! Thank YOU, God! At 11:30 that morning I didn't think it could happen. At 2:00 that afternoon I didn't think it could happen. Even at 5:35 that afternoon I didn't think it could happen. BUT GOD...

We asked people this year to do three things:

1) Pack neatly to show love
2) Pack the boxes full but don't OVERfill
3) Pray over your boxes

I think they listened! And I think we realized doing those three things takes more time. We're praying our goal of 22,000 well-filled boxes was met and, if so, it's because GOD showed up for us.

Our team motto this year was Numbers 11:23 "Is the Lord's arm too short?" and the answer to that rhetorical question is a resounding NO!  Thank You, Lord, for packing these boxes with Your mighty right hand.

I just heard from Patti who was in charge of registration and the donation can that $307.43 was donated toward the cost of shipping these boxes. We've received about $8,700 so far and will keep praying for God to meet that need. Patti said one little girl told her, "I don't have much" but she did give everything she had. We're praying for more willing givers.

We think back to Austin Drakulic who came to every packing party work day, even while going through chemotherapy, and worked tirelessly to make jump ropes and school packs. Austin fought the good fight and we think he would have been proud of all the shoebox packers yesterday who fought the good fight in his memory.