"Sometimes things are just hard..." wrote my prayer team member to me in a text less than an hour ago. Truer words were never spoken.
This will be our 15th year to do a large community packing party, and I have always felt bad that we didn't have a letter to include in each box. We hear so often from shoebox recipients of how they are blessed by having a letter and picture from the person who packed their box. It seems to give them a connection and feeling of being loved by someone they've never met. Since we pack thousands of boxes, handwritten notes aren't possible, and in past years I've hesitated to spend the money that could be spent on shoebox contents and shipping donations to invest in letters.
This year, though, I had a stronger feeling than ever before that this was important. I investigated both online printing options and a local company and found the online company to be about half the cost. As further confirmation, one of my team members offered to split the cost with me, and the plan to order 25,000 postcards with a picture on one side and a simple printed greeting on the other was finalized.
Then...we had to make plans for a picture. A key team member was on a mission trip until Wednesday of this week, and we had a promo code for 20% off with the online printing company that ended on Friday. Thursday was our only opportunity to get this shot. I sent out a few emails and invited team members to join us at Presque Isle, our local state park on Lake Erie.
We recruited an amateur photographer, God blessed us with perfect weather, and we had the shots completed in short order last night. That was the easy part.
I liked the photo pictured here, but this is a cropped version. The original had more scenery around it, so I cropped it out. Because I'm so techno-deficient, I didn't realize that would mess with the resolution of the photo. I struggled for hours last evening to figure out how to get this picture uploaded into the printing company's site and finally got it done at 2:30 am. As my friend said, "Sometimes things are just hard."
Then this morning I got an email from the printing company telling me the photo was small and blurry and asking for the original photo. I replied and attached what I thought was the original, but the very patient Michael from Blockbuster Printing responded promptly (and kindly) to tell me it was the same exact photo. Could I please get an original with better resolution? As I said, "Sometimes things are just hard."
I contacted the photographer who was kind enough to promptly send me the original, and I forwarded it to Michael along with an apology and an explanation of how we were including these in our Operation Christmas Child boxes. I also sent a few desperate texts to our prayer team asking for prayer over this.
Maybe it's just that I've had a couple of nights with only a few hours of sleep that made me a bit overemotional, but I teared up when I read Michael's reply, "Perfection, this one is great. I will size correctly for you and send to print. These will be done by next week. Thank you so much again and best of luck on your generous efforts. We hope all goes well for you. We are rooting for you! Keep up that wonderful spirit, Kathy and happy 4th of July as well." Wow!
I wrote back to Michael and explained how he was an answer to prayer and told him how much his patience, kindness, and encouragement meant to me today. Maybe we both needed a little encouragement, because, after all, "Sometimes things are just hard."
But, by God's grace, our boxes will have cards with a picture and encouraging message in them this year. And, though sometimes things are just hard, they are also worth the effort. Getting carded was worth it.
