Decisions

So many decisions. It seems like every time we make one there's another one popping up to take its place.

The good news is...we have a packing party goal! Our goal is to pack 22,000 well-filled boxes by 4:00 pm on September 14, 2019.

Now we're moving on to decisions about items to purchase--what and how many?  But those decisions are often based on other situations--like cash flow and storage. Right now I'm praying about  making a large order of thousands of items.  I'd like to try to get a better deal on them by reducing the shipping charges. Having them delivered to a place with a loading dock would help in that respect because we wouldn't need a lift gate for the delivery.

A local company allowed us to have 7 pallets of items delivered to them a few months ago. Unfortunately the man from my Life Group who was our contact there has been laid off from his job. I'm trying to make contact with them on my own and not having much luck. Today I worked up the nerve to call them (which took a lot of prayer and eating about 2000 calories before I took the plunge and dialed) only to get an automated directory followed by 20 rings of the phone when I dialed "0" for the operator and, ultimately, an answering machine that instructed me to leave a message.
Needless to say, that decision is still up in the air.

Meanwhile, there are little decisions that meander through the day--what to do about the team member who hasn't signed her ministry description?  what will I do if the two team members who haven't completed their recommitment don't follow through by the Friday deadline? what's my next move in the quest for a new Central Drop-Off?

I like to escape those decisions by completing a mundane task--like sorting stuffed animal donations. But I hit a decision wall there tonight, too.  I got four bags of stuffed animals donated by a sweet woman in her 90s who makes simple stuffed cats and fish for our boxes. But as I looked at them I realized her work is not what it was a few years ago--even a few months ago.  Are they good enough for our shoeboxes? If not, what do I do with them?

I'm so glad I found this verse this morning from Jehoshaphat's prayer in 2 Chronicles 20:12--"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on You."

Father, I can't even decide what it means to keep my eyes on You but I know that's my greatest need. I know You are more than enough for me, for our team, and for every chain of decisions.

I'm deciding now to keep my eyes on You.

Delighting

As I've been praying for guidance over the past weeks God has been answering in some ways I didn't expect. My main prayers have been for answers about not only a goal for our packing party but for wisdom on which church to approach first about being our Central Drop-Off Site for Operation Christmas Child.

Maybe most people don't agonize over these decisions. I mean it's easy enough to just choose a number for a goal or pick up the phone and randomly call one of the two churches we have in mind as Central Drop-Off Site. I don't know which of my 3 P's-- perfectionism, procrastination, or people-pleasing--is most responsible for my crazy level of indecision but it's plagued me all my life.

While seeking answers lately, though, I discovered I may be asking the wrong questions.

In my regular Bible reading this week I read Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart."  Such a familiar verse but I honestly haven't thought about it or read it in a while. I stopped to meditate on these words for a bit, then turned back to my computer to read a daily devotional that arrived in my email. And, wouldn't you know, the same verse popped up in that devotional. Okay, God, I get the message.

Webster's dictionary defines 'delight' when used as a verb to mean "to take great pleasure or to give keen enjoyment or to give joy or satisfaction." So my new question is: do I delight in the Lord?

I delight in looking at all three of my sweet little grandsons. I delight in finding bargains and getting quality items at a low price. I delight in food of almost any kind.

But...do I get pleasure, keen enjoyment, joy and satisfaction from the Lord? Oh, how I want to delight in Him. As I ponder what that means I think of His promise to give me "the desires of (my) heart."

IF I can really learn to delight in Him then the perfectionism, procrastination, and people-pleasing won't be an issue...

Because IF I learn to delight in Him the desires of my heart will be...HIM.

Goal Guidance

If nothing else this Operation Christmas Child journey keeps me on my knees and in dependence on God because nothing happens without Him.

So here I am again praying and waiting for guidance. After weeks of waiting for the shipping window dates from Operation Christmas Child headquarters we received that information almost two weeks ago. I immediately sent emails to the church that allows us to use their facility for our packing party to see if our desired dates in September are available. Now...we wait for the church to get back to us. Last year that took six weeks. We have a deadline of May 6th to let OCC know our date and the number of boxes we plan as our goal.

We have three weeks to get those answers.

We've been praying also about our goal for the packing party. We know we'll be getting larger boxes and will need more items to fill them and more truck space since each carton will only hold 16 boxes this year instead of 23 boxes.

Today I had a phone call with my regional director and he gave me the rating for our box quality from last year's packing party. The boxes from our 2017 party earned an "A" rating but the four boxes they pulled as samples from the 30,590 boxes we did in 2018 all needed more filler items added so we received a "C" rating this year.  I was disappointed because I honestly thought our boxes were better in 2018 than in previous years.

In our last meeting we studied the sovereignty of God. God knew which boxes would be picked to be rated from our 2018 packing party.  Maybe this "C" rating is an answer to our prayers and He is telling us to cut back further than we thought we would.

Should we do only 22,000 boxes this year instead of the 27,000 we'd been recently planning?  We do have an inspection process at the end of the line but obviously it wasn't good enough--at least for four of those boxes.

We believe God's arm is NOT too short and He can do anything. The question is: how many boxes does He want us to pack?

Please pray with us for His answers over the next 21 days as we look together for His goal guidance.

It's Urgent but He's Enough

I just finished an Operation Christmas Child learning module about "Leading With Urgency". The thing about serving the Lord is that you can never do enough. There are always more to be reached--2 billion children in the world under age 15, for example.

Yet, on the other hand, when we're yoked with Christ He is enough. The balance is to prayerfully ask Him what He wants me and our OCC team to do each day, each month, each year.

So as I listened to this teaching with its exhortation to be flexible, continuously seek improvement, and be entrepreneurial I was doing some self-evaluation. Our team spends a lot of time planning, praying and executing by God's grace a major community-wide packing party. And...to be honest...I spend a lot of time wondering if that's what God really wants us to do. I mean, it's not at all part of the high-impact OCC process.

Still, as I look at the gifts and passions of our team members I see how they love to pack shoeboxes. From the time I was a young child I loved to hunt for bargains, and while this is not a spiritual gift (unless you loosely group it in the category of 'helps') it's both a skill and a passion of mine and of a number of our team members.

I feel God has gifted us with skills and resources to do this annual packing party and it's by His grace and good pleasure that it's grown year by year.

This year we are practicing flexibility as we just got the official word this week that we'll be packing the newer larger corrugated boxes this year. With 25% more space to fill we're praying again over our goal. We did get permission from the church that allows us to use their facilities for the packing party to put five trucks in their parking lot instead of the four we've had for the past few years. With five trucks and putting 16 boxes in each carton (as opposed to the 23 we've been able to put in each carton previously) we figure we could do 27,000 boxes.  But...can we adequately fill that many?

Meanwhile we had our second packing party work day this week. We had 20+ volunteers throughout the day and assembled nearly 2,000 jump ropes (only 23,600 more to go!) and a LOT of school packs. AND a couple came who said they want to investigate serving as year-round volunteers!

Last Saturday we hosted a display table (pictured above) at our local Christian radio station's Women's Conference and made some good connections. Six new prayer partners committed to pray for OCC.

We're praying and investigating item options for this year's boxes.  We're going to ask God to help us be flexible, continuously improving, and entrepreneurial. We're asking God to show us what His will is for our team's packing party in 2019.

Because, in the end, God knows the true urgency of His mission and when He gave that mission He also gave the best promise ever, "I am with you always."

And THAT is enough!

A-maz-ing Grace

At our last meeting we studied God's goodness and challenged our OCC team to read this verse every day.  Psalm 84:11 "For the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord gives grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly."

It's crazy to think the God of the universe wants to bless me and you, but it's true.

This week I saw His grace in a unique answer to prayer. Before I went to visit my daughter Julie and her family in Chicago last weekend I prayed that I'd be able to bless her in some way.  While I was there she was telling me about a Little Tikes toy they have at the physical therapy office where she takes our little grandson. The therapist uses the sounds of the toy to encourage him to turn his head and loosen the muscles in his neck.

Julie wanted to buy this toy, but the therapist said, "Oh, that's probably eight years old. I doubt you can find it now."  I asked Julie to describe it to me but not having actually seen it I couldn't really picture what it looked like.  While I was there I did an Internet search and checked eBay all to no avail.

Fast forward a few days to this Wednesday when I went to a local thrift store in search of stuffed animals. When my animal hunt was over I browsed the few toys on the shelf and found this one. It was a Little Tikes toy and it had various sounds. Could this be the one?  Well, it had a .50 price tag but toys were "Buy One Get One Free" so I picked up another toy and got them both for .50.

When I got home I texted this picture to my daughter and asked, "Is this by any chance the toy they have at physical therapy?"

A few minutes later I got the reply, "Yes!! How did you do that?!"

I didn't do that. It was an answer to prayer. Another example of God's A-MAZ-ING grace. Today I put the toy in the mail and hope it will be a blessing. It's sure a reminder to me of God's goodness. Oh, and by the way I checked the other toy I picked up and found out it sells on Amazon for $39.99.

A-maz-ing

Future Me

Can you believe it's been almost six weeks since I updated this blog! Well, my little grandson can't believe it either but it's true.

I've spent a lot of time in those weeks praying for truck deliveries of shoebox items that were coming in our unpredictable winter weather. Because unloading pallets in the middle of a winter snowstorm is just no fun at all.

But by God's grace our prayers were answered and we received three deliveries in the past few weeks with no problems.

First came 149 spools of rope that will allow us to assemble 25,600 jump ropes --

Then we got two more deliveries of assorted shoebox filler items. One of those deliveries went to a local manufacturing plant that donated some much-needed storage space to us. I can't tell you how exciting it was to have them sent directly to a warehouse with a loading dock and not have to hand unload all those pallets. Of course eventually we'll have to get them moved to the packing party site but we can figure that out later.

Speaking of the packing party, we still don't know when the available shipping windows will be so we don't have a date.  And we don't know what size boxes we will be receiving--the older style of GO boxes or the newer corrugated ones--so we don't have a goal. I know people are praying, though, because I have a peace in knowing that God is in control.

I could see the results of that peace today when I received an unexpected email from FutureMe.org.  Five years ago I wrote a letter to myself to be delivered in five years through this site.  I forgot all about it and was surprised to receive it today.  This is what I wrote on March 10, 2014 --

Dear FutureMe,

In 2019 will I still be packing Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes? I just returned from the OCC Connect Conference and have grave doubts about whether I should even be an AC or doing a large packing party. I don't have many items this year yet, which is unusual. And at Connect they made a big push to get $7.00 per box for shipping. I feel like such a failure and that I don't do anything right. Maybe it's God's way of trying to keep my pride at bay, but I seem to be a failure in most areas. It's good I am retiring this year because I'm not successful in school nursing. I'm not successful at leadership. I'm not successful as a wife and mother or with extended family. So many questions. I am just tired.

When I read this today I smiled, because--again by God's grace--I don't feel that angst right now. At least not today.  A lot of things haven't changed. My team is even smaller than it was in 2014. I still struggle with leadership and no, even though I pray for it I have never actually seen the whole $9 per box shipping donation. Still, I know God is in control and I know today He's called me to this place in His body and He will have to be the one to do His work in me.

Still, there's so much more I could and should be doing. And as I think toward the future I know we DO need to prayerfully add more team members, especially some younger ones.

To that end I spent a delightful hour last week with the Kindergarten and Pre-K students at Leadership Christian Academy.  These sweet kids work on projects for OCC every month at their monthly service day. This month they were making bookmarks and bracelets. Then in November they will pack boxes. I presented each of them with an OCC t-shirt and talked about how they could be ambassadors (admittedly a big word for Kindergarteners) for OCC.

Maybe one of them will be my future me.

Meanwhile, our team has adopted a new motto for 2019 that I found in my reading in Numbers one morning:  Numbers 11:23 "Is the LORD'S arm too short?"

We know that His arm is NOT too short and our little team is putting our trust in that this year. So our media support person, Pam, made these magnets for each of us. It features a picture she took on her trip to Israel of the Promised Land as seen from Mt. Nebo.

Like the old song says, I don't know what the future holds but I know WHO holds the future...

**PS--If you'd like to write a letter that will be emailed to you in 1, 3, or 5 years you can do that at FutureMe.org

Leading and Following

I attend a church that has a huge focus on leadership and offers quite an array of leadership training options. This is a good thing for someone who's a leader in Operation Christmas Child, right?

Well...yes and no.

At my age I sometimes wonder what all the hoopla is about leadership. In the 50s and 60s I don't remember anyone talking much about leadership. Maybe that's because I was just a kid but I don't think I was that sheltered from the culture. I honestly don't remember when we all started talking about leadership, especially in church.  We used to have Bible studies and weekly prayer meetings and then in the 70s we started talking about special methods of discipleship.

But somewhere over the last few decades leadership became a hot topic not only for business executives but for everyone from church laypersons to stay-at-home parents.

I understand. Learning principles of leadership is important. But now that I'm old I'm more skeptical of every new leaning. I question a whole lot more now than in I did back in the 70s. And pretty frequently I question what I'm gaining from all my exposure to leadership training.

Today I attended a quarterly Leadership One Day training at my church. The seminars I attended were well done but they left me feeling like many of these trainings do these days--like I'm missing the boat.

Two of my sessions today were about prioritizing and organizing time. As I learned new tools to help me account for every hour of my day and make sure I'm maximizing the time God's given me I felt increasingly uncomfortable. Truth be told, I don't even keep a good personal calendar let alone get strategically organized.

I learned about how to handle an influx of emails and to avoid looking at them except for certain designated times during the day. I hate to admit it, but I welcome those emails--even the junk ones--because you just never know when Oriental Trading's going to have some fantastic coupon so I can buy cow bells really cheap for our shoeboxes.

We discussed how to avoid letting social media drain hours in the day.  Yeah, that's a valid skill for sure. Sometimes social media is a real waste. But if you're reading this blog it's probably because you saw it on Facebook. In addition to being a time waster social media's also a valuable means of communication and a way I spend time praying for people in my day.

I have some things scheduled in my life but far more of my life in this stage is not scheduled. I'm not sure that's a problem. I mean, I hope it's not.

But as I sat in those seminars today all I could think was how great God is. ONLY GOD could take me with all my low-tech slothful ways and get me to do anything.

And next weekend I have our annual regional Area Coordinators' retreat where I'll get fed even more information I can't begin to assimilate. Cue the violins...

Seriously, though, do you ever wonder how Jesus would function in our society? I know He would have the perfect balance between organizing and maximizing His time and allowing the important interruptions that come from dealing with people. And I'll bet He'd never struggle to figure out how to use google docs.

Meanwhile, I'll keep muddling along in this leadership frenzy while, hopefully, still learning to follow the greatest Leader of all. As much as I need leadership training I need Jesus follower training even more.