The Little Things

 

Sometimes we feel prayer should be reserved for really crucial things like world peace. But God tells us over and over again in His word to pray about everything and to "cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you." (1 Peter 5:7)

Honestly, most of my prayers are for pretty small specific things--things that may seem trivial--like a better price on balls for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes or for good weather and timing for deliveries or for just the right volunteers to come at just the right times to get our boxes packed.

For the last eight months or so this little miracle is one of the little things I've been praying for. I'm not sure I agree with the term 'pregnancy loss' because I know none of these little ones who go to heaven without drawing a breath on earth are lost in terms of eternity. They are experiencing life forever, yet their earthly parents are left with the loss of the joy of knowing them here. And so, by this definition, my daughter has experienced more loss over the past several years. Not one to dwell on her sorrow, though, she moved on beyond the miscarriages and we rejoiced last Christmas when she shared the joyous news that God had blessed them with yet another pregnancy.

The prayers moved from the generalized prayer for the blessing of a healthy baby to more specific prayers as the pregnancy advanced. Our daughter and son-in-law did not want to learn the gender of their baby before the birth. And though the health of this baby was her primary concern there were other wishes she had for this labor and delivery. She wanted less medical intervention if possible and a chance to move around more during labor. She chose a midwife as her health provider.

As her due date of August 11 came and went in this hot summer she kept her eyes on the goal. Rather than having her labor induced she chose to wait beyond week 40. And then beyond week 41. It was decided her labor would be induced on August 23rd if she did not begin labor before then.

Meanwhile we kept praying. I was praying specifically that this labor and delivery would be a memorial stone in her family's walk of fatih--a time when they would see God's goodness in new ways. 

Though I kept praying her contractions would begin, for some reason I felt sure her labor would not begin until the 23rd. And, truthfully, I felt a bit guilty for that. Did it mean I lacked faith God would work? 

On Saturday we traveled to our daughter's home to stay with our two-year-old grandson, Sam. Early Sunday morning we prayed together before Jen and Jeremy left for the hospital. In this COVID world we knew we wouldn't see them until they brought their baby home.

News was sparse through the day but we kept praying as the hours wore on. I got several messages and one said she was able to have intermittent monitoring for only 15 minutes per hour so she could move around. A definite answer to a specific prayer. 

Finally, at 10:30 that night Jen called to say her baby was safely here. A girl. Our first granddaughter. And they named her Mabel Irene after her great-grandmothers. I was excited to hear how God answered another specific little prayer. After rupturing her membranes in the morning, Jen's labor progressed naturally with no medication needed. 

Now I'll continue my daily specific prayers for this sweet miracle baby and for my three other grandchildren--that each will know how much God loves him or her and respond to that love by surrendering themselves to a lifelong relationship with Him. 

No prayer could be more crucial. 

Day 3--They're Off, You see!

 

Day 3--and by God's grace we were done at 10:30 am! After cleanup we prayed around the truck for the children who will receive these boxes.

Packing so many boxes with a group of only 15 or fewer people at individual tables is something we never would have considered doing if it were not for COVID. And I had no idea how it would work. But our team actually loved it. In general there was less stress and it was more efficient in terms of time than our usual assembly packing party.

I figured each person packed about 250 boxes in a seven hour day and I'm pretty sure that's way more than the average person packed in a day by walking a large circuit around the inside of the church.  And we know these boxes were well-packed, also. That's a relief for sure.

At the same time, we realize we are losing the sense of community and the chance to interact with so many people at our large packing party. We mourn that loss, but we're grateful God provided this way for us to continue to bless children around the world. 

Each person packed at a socially distanced station and packed only 6-8 boxes at a time with their supplies on the other side of the table so they didn't have to move much. This helped with efficiency.

We had a list on each station so the packers knew what to put into each of these pre-planned boxes. While this was going on, we had three team members combining miscellaneous items for boxes for boys and girls ages 2-4. These trusted team members had a good grasp of all that was available and could hand pick the items that worked best together to make the best use of resources. 

Another reason things worked so well is that team members were self-directed. Those who were not at packing stations quickly noticed tasked that needed to be done to make things run more efficiently. Ed, who I dubbed "the sock guy" quickly started opening the plastic bags containing two pairs of socks so the individual pairs would be ready for packing. This was something we couldn't do in advance because many items were 'buried' in storage and unaccessible. 

Other team members took on tasks like breaking down boxes or stocking tables with supplies. In our debrief at the end of this session we discussed ways to make those tasks official jobs for volunteers in September. 

Sadly, we could have put 6 more cartons on the truck. My math was wrong when I ordered boxes. For some reason I thought 5400 would fill the 350 cartons on the truck but it actually takes 5600 to fill 350 cartons with 16 boxes each. They sent me 5500 boxes, thankfully, but since one carton only had 49 boxes our total when every single box was packed was 5499.  And how did we know one carton only had 49 boxes you ask? Only ONE carton of boxes had the boxes counted. Just ONE--because a team member took them home, folded them, and arranged them in rows of 5 and came out with an odd stack of 4 at the end. And we were missing only ONE box. 

I wish I'd ordered more boxes...and if I'd known how fast it would go we could have ordered even MORE boxes and a second truck. 

Still...the truck was just pulled and there are now 5499 gospel opportunities on the way to Charlotte. And...we'll be back to pack more in a few weeks so stay tuned. 

Pressing On in Day 2

 

Pressing on to Day 2 of our 2020 packing. Yes, we had to compress the cardboard in the dumpster, and we were pressing on in other ways also.

The truck was moved first thing this morning. That was a relief! 

Once again we had 13-15 people working at any time throughout the day. There were usually 4-5 people folding boxes while 7-9 packed boxes. Since we want to pack another three trucks full of boxes in September and/or October we're trying to figure out if there's any way we can have more people working at any one time. We'd need more space to stay socially distanced and then we'd need at least 1 or 2 more people carbonizing boxes and stacking them in the truck. Maybe it's simpler to just stick with this number and pack over the space of more days? So many questions!

Several families who are used to coming to pack together are disappointed this has been an 'adults only' affair this year. It's another COVID casualty. 

We ended the day with 4,024 boxes on the truck. There are 810 packed boxes at my house waiting for transport to the truck. That means we have fewer than 700 boxes to pack tomorrow to get the truck filled.  

We'll keep pressing on! 

Packing At A Distance

 

2020--a year of forced change. So many things are different and our 12th annual Operation Christmas Child packing party is no exception. We had to cancel our large community-wide event in September since our governor declared we could have no indoor gatherings of more than 25 people.  But, because God blessed us with nearly all our items in advance of the pandemic we believe He wants us to get these boxes packed.

So we are in our first week of packing with the goal of filling our first truck this week. I made an error in calculations when I ordered our boxes. I thought 5400 boxes would fill a truck but it turns out a full truck of 350 cartons will accommodate 5600 boxes. We actually received 110 cartons of boxes which should give us 5500 total--we'll see how that works out.

We planned as well as we could and invited just a short list of people to come and pack. Today we had 15 at the most. We have 9 individual tables as stations for people to pack boxes and then have a few people folding boxes (socially distanced) in one corner and a cartonizing area in the opposite corner

My goal was to pack 1200 boxes per day but today, by God's grace, we completed over 1700. If we continue at this rate we could be done by Wednesday. We'll see.

The big glitch today came with the placement of the truck. We were there waiting for the truck but were in the gym at the back of the church. Apparently the driver came to the front office and they just had him place the truck in the front parking lot where we'd normally place it for our large packing party. The problem is we are working only out of the gym and need to take the cartons out the side door--quite a distance from where the truck is parked in the front. The guys improvised today by loading the cartons in a pick-up truck and driving it to the truck in the front. Not very efficient--especially on a day when the temperature reached 89 degrees.

We're praying the truck will get moved tomorrow so loading the cartons will be easier.   Meanwhile I'm praising God for so many answers to prayer...

Even at a distance.