National Collection Week Eve

Actually, it just passed midnight, so it's NOW officially National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child. We area coordinator volunteers were having a Facebook discussion about how we felt on the eve of NCW. It's a butterflies-in-the-stomach blend of anticipation, excitement and apprehension. I liken it to the way I felt at the starting line of a marathon back when I did a lot of distance running. You've spent all those months training and preparing and you stand at the line and wonder how it will all work out. Then as soon as the starting gun sounds you take off running straight for the finish line.

So now we run.

Tonight I did my final speaking engagement for OCC. I went to the First Baptist Church in Meadville. It was a blessing that my husband drove since I forgot to take the church address and couldn't program the GPS. It's a good thing he loves me as he patiently waited for me to go into another Baptist Church's evening service and ask for directions. I'm so glad to be home.

The best news today, though, came from Linda Bennett, our Prayer Coordinator. Linda comes from a rural church that actually began OCC in Erie County back in 1995. Their small church doubled their shoebox numbers to 88 this year. This morning they had the children's Sunday school class pack 12 boxes. They showed the DVD and explained to the children that these boxes were being given to tell children about Jesus, and they also gave out those credit-card size Salvation Poems.

Linda said there were several children there who she sensed had never made a commitment of their lives to Jesus, so they shared the salvation message and gave an invitation. And THREE precious children trusted Christ today at a little church's OCC Packing Party. Linda says they are children who've had a tough life but now they know Christ. Just wanted to tell you that as an encouragement. Our boxes are ALREADY bringing little hearts to Jesus.

Will you pray with us for a great harvest of shoeboxes this week and an even greater harvest of souls?

Jonah-ish

Today I'm trying to emulate the transparency that David displayed in the psalms he wrote. Today I'm feeling awfully Jonah-ish.

Today I don't want to do what it takes to obey God.

Today I don't want to be an Area Coordinator for Operation Christmas Child.

Today I don't want to be anything that requires leadership.

Today I don't want to be a servant.

Today, like Jonah, I don't even care about all the children around the world who "don't know their right hand from their left" and don't know God loves them.

Today I don't want to 'translate the cause'--not even to myself.

Today I want to read a mystery novel or watch a mindless movie.

Today I want to eat things that aren't good for me to try to make me feel better.

Today I want to pull the covers over my head (or sit under my dead vine and whine).

But God, by His mercy, reminds me that

Today God's truth is always there to be heard.

Today God has a plan and will make a way.

Today God may move someone to pray.

Today is too precious to waste and

Today is not over yet.

Generally Blessed

Today was one of the days I wait for--90% off at Dollar General on summer clothes and shoes. I made it to 8 stores today and was blessed with 444 clothing items for Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. Now I'm sorting and bagging the bounty.

For the first year that I can remember, I don't really need these items to meet my goal of packed boxes for the current year so I'm trying to decide where to store them.

Should I start taking stuff to the loft at Grace Church in hopes of having another giant shoe box packing party next year? Should I take it to the basement of Wesley Church and keep packing boxes throughout the year?

In the midst of these questions I've been doing a lot of speaking for OCC. Last night I was in Albion to speak to the Lions Club's auxiliary and ended up getting lost in the country. I hate country roads--especially at night. They're so creepy and dark and lonely. By God's grace I didn't get attacked by an ax murderer but it felt like I might. Tomorrow I'm headed back into the country again--down to Seneca, PA. Sunday before last I was in Guys Mills (country again) and this Sunday I'm off to Clintonville--which I'm SURE is in the country. Creepy. But I'll drive to the ends of the earth (or at least what seems like it) to beg for more shoe boxes to be packed.

Enough of this. I'm off to sort sandals and think about how to inspire country folks to pack more shoe boxes.

I really am Generally blessed.

A Great Number

My Bible reading yesterday took me to the first chapter of Numbers where I was reading about the census God commanded them to take of all the men over the age of 20 who could fight for Israel. When I got to verse 46 I read, "The total number was 603,550."

It just made me stop and think of what a perfect total number of Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes that would be for the Mid-Atlantic region this year. We've all been praying for the goal of 600,000 anyway--so why not up it to 603,550? What a great biblical number. Just think of 603,550 gospel opportunities touching 603,550 children who could then fight to take the gospel to others. Of course I had to grab my calculator to check and I found it's just a little over a 15% increase over last year's Mid-Atlantic total.

Also, I noticed how the numbers in Numbers chapter 1 are counted as a total from those of individual tribes just as ours will be a total from area teams--we'll have our own little paraphrase of this chapter. It gave me a new appreciation for the idea of all those numbers in the Bible.

Just thought I'd share that I have a new prayer goal--603,550.

He Did It!

I am amazed at all God has done. A week ago all the items to pack the shoe boxes were still in the loft area at Grace Church or in the basement at Wesley Church. Now, just seven days later, they're all packed into shoe boxes and ready to be transported to children around the world.

Last night I wrote about how I tossed in bed crying out for God to do what only He could do.

And today He did it!

The packing started a bit after 9:00 am and by 1:00 pm we were past the 5,000 goal. Streams of volunteers--around 150 of them--piled items into boxes as I prowled the perimeter and tried to stay out of the chaos. If there were complaints, I didn't hear them. God likely closed my ears to keep my sanity. I only spent a few minutes in a corner of a dark room praying about whether to send my husband on a one-hour trip to pick up more notebooks from our old church where some of the supplies were stored.

Interesting about the supplies--the toothpaste I thought we'd never run out of because I had so much extra was the first thing to deplete. Well, right after the pencils. We started to divide the 24-packs of crayons into bags of 8 to make them stretch and then ended up with extra. And the clothing items? By my count we didn't have enough to do 5,000 boxes but we ended up packing 5,577 and still had some left over. Unexplainable. The notebooks I sent my husband to get weren't really needed in the end but the bagged candy he got there was.

After the packing party was over, Heather, Elizabeth, Kristin and I went back to Wesley Church and packed another 126 boxes to bring the total there to 4,126. We'll meet there tomorrow at 2:00 pm and hopefully have enough volunteers to move those boxes upstairs, cartonize them, and truck them to Grace Church to put them on the semi.

5,577 plus 4,126 plus 318 boxes brought in by individuals at Grace Church= 10,021 boxes to put on the truck so far. Why did I have those moments of doubt in the night?

Only You, God. Only You.

Commit Your Way

I've been tossing in bed on this eve of the giant packing party. Sleep eludes me. Earlier this evening I was feeling excitement but now I feel like a condemned prisoner--no turning back.

I wish I could just stand on a balcony and watch the packing party happen instead of having to be in the middle of the chaos and deal with questions and complaints and feel my lack of leadership skills slapping me over and over again.

As we worked today to organize items on tables, all I could think was that it just doesn't look like enough to nicely fill 5,000 boxes. I know I have the basics but there just aren't enough filler items and the stacks of stuffed animals look slim.

Jesus, take what we have just like you took that little boy's lunch so many centuries ago and multiply it. Make it last. Make it fill the corners of those boxes. Make it bless children in Your name. Give us baskets left over.

I've been clinging to Psalm 37:5 that promises, "Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him and He will do this."

Do it, Lord, or it won't be done.

Sufficient

'sufficient' is sort of an antiquated word. We don't use it all that much anymore except in the context of 'self-sufficient'--being able to take care of yourself. I'm not feeling self-sufficient right now. Not hardly.

I should be sleeping. But I'm not. I'm thinking. I'm not worrying, mind you, I'm just thinking. My thoughts bounce around from anticipation to consternation when I think about this giant packing party for Operation Christmas Child on September 26th and realize it will all be over in three weeks. We're asking God to let us pack 5,000 gift-filled boxes in one day for needy children around the world. Will I be sorry that I didn't do more to prepare?

I've been doing an inventory of items for the boxes and calculating what we could run out of first. I think we need more than another 1,500 stuffed animals. From where will they appear?

I bought and hauled another 1,176 notebooks from Target in the last two days. Will we have enough?

It's all still pretty much a mystery. Some of the details are coming together but a lot remains undecided and uncharted. As I tossed in bed minutes ago, Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 12:9 kept running through my head. Paul said that God told him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." I don't know how God told him that, but Paul writes it as a quote from God and he passed it on to us.

God says His grace is sufficient and an online definition of 'sufficient' is "as much as is needed." I've sure got the weakness to make His power show up for the perfection it is and He's got the sufficient grace to meet every need. By the time September 27th comes around and the semi trailer's loaded with thousands of boxes and ready to roll this will all be just another story of God's sufficiency.

Sufficient. Yeah, it's gonna be more than okay.