Opening The Door

 

Four months without a blog post? What has my life come to? Mostly, it's come to a lot of the same old stuff including truck deliveries and moving stuff from one spot to another and watching God answer prayer for our Operation Christmas Child team. Moving stuff around gets old and doesn't seem very blog-worthy but watching God answer prayer is something else and I really should write those answers down more often, if only for my own benefit.

But today I want to talk about something else. I want to reminisce about answered prayer from decades ago that spills over into the 'now'. It may not be a coincidence that this morning's sermon talked about discipling the next generation. 

This sermon came just days after a little reunion that took place at a local restaurant on Wednesday night. We were blessed to have dinner with three couples and one spouse in each of those couples was part of the senior high youth group Jim and I 'led' (I use that term loosely here) during the first years of our marriage. 

Let me just say that first year of marriage was one of the hardest, if not THE hardest, years of my life. Married just nine days after my college graduation at age 21, I struggled to get my bearings as a wife. As a couple. And I struggled in my new job as a floor nurse on an orthopedic/neurosurgery floor at a local hospital. I felt ill equipped, constantly failing, and perpetually exhausted.

And into my mess came a gaggle of teenagers. They were only 4-6 years younger than I. I had no wisdom for them. I was spiritually drier than I've ever been for most of that year. But God opened a door. 

Jim and I rented a little home (which, by the way, we still live in 47 years later.) Did I mention it was little? But those kids didn't care. They just wanted a place to get together and enjoy each other's company. Many days or nights there were spontaneous knocks on the door. I didn't have the gift of hospitality and I still don't. But those kids didn't care. They didn't care that all I served them were bags of potato chips and commercially made french onion dip. More often than not that dip got ground into our beautiful '70s orange carpet.

They just kept knocking. 

I was spiritually dry. And empty. And woefully lacking in maturity and wisdom. And as non-Martha-Stewart as the day is long. 

But I kept opening the door. And they kept building community.

Fast forward to this Wednesday night in the restaurant. Those kids are now all retirement age but they shared how much those few short years meant in their lives. Their memories of the retreats we attended together and the pranks they pulled and the joy of community are vivid and remembered with fondness. They talked about churches they attend and ministries they are part of and the lives they've lived in the grace of God. Not perfectly, but still filled with grace. And, really, that's what discipling involves--sharing together in His grace. 

A few decades later I did a stint of thirteen years of teaching Sunday school to middle schoolers. I hope there was some discipling going on there also. And how do you ever really measure the effect of teaching the word of God to kids who are so embroiled in adolescent angst that they can barely even listen? 

You don't. But you just keep showing up and opening the door to God's word. You listen. You pray. And you hope that someday maybe one of those verses you paid them to memorize (yes, I PAID them) will make a difference when they need it. 

One of those former students became a successful youth leader in a large church. And two of them became drag queens. I'm not sure about each of them but God knows. 

And He keeps opening the door. 

God meets our needs in strange ways, too. God meets our needs--for me, for you.

I regularly pray God will meet every financial need of Samaritan's Purse and that no ministry will be left undone for lack of funds. This fervent prayer comes partly from my angst about not seeing the $9 shipping donation for every box we pack at our large Operations Christmas Child packing parties. Last year, for example, we packed 22,697 boxes. The full shipping donation for those would be $204,273. But we didn't see that full contribution. Instead, as far as I know, we had about $11,500 donated for shipping. 

Not. Nearly. Enough.

I also regularly pray for God to tell us clearly if He wants us to scale back and pack fewer boxes (say maybe 3000) so we can send the entire shipping donation. Somehow, though, He keeps providing all these items and we just keep packing. 

Still, I pray both these prayers over and over and over.

I try to think of every way possible to get more funds for shipping these boxes. I've sold things at consignment stores. My husband and I give all we can on a monthly basis. I've done an online fundraiser through Samaritan's Purse each year that has raised as much as $1000 but, truthfully, most of my social media contacts are people who already pack shoeboxes themselves.

Back in the late 1990s when eBay was pretty new I sold items there that I found at yard sales--mostly books and vintage toys. And I did pretty well with all proceeds going to various mission projects. But then eBay became flooded with so many items and fees were charged for listing items each week. If the items didn't sell you could actually lose money.

Over the past few years of yard sale trips I collected some things I thought might earn some money, and when I cleaned out my spare room after the holidays I decided it was time to try again on eBay. To my excitement I found proceeds of my sales on eBay could go directly to Samaritan's Purse and, if they did, I wouldn't have to pay eBay fees. I also discovered eBay now only charges the fee when the item sells (probably had to do that to compete with Facebook marketplace and other platforms.) It was also easier to list the items than it used to be.

In the past two months I sold about 20 items and Samaritan's Purse will receive a donation of  $1200. It doesn't seem like much compared to $204,273, and it goes into Samaritan's Purse's general fund. But I am pretending it's a way to help with shipping. 

The thing is--I pretty much depleted my stock of anything salable. Only a few items remain that I keep trying to sell.

Fast forward to this week when I heard about several Dr. Seuss books being removed from publication. That led me to pull down the attic staircase and trudge up into that cold storage to check the two boxes of children's books that are left there. These are the ones my daughters didn't want for our grandchildren--the really old and beat up ones. I have a terrible time parting with old books or these would be gone too.

One copy paper box held old Dr. Seuss books. These are ones I bought at yard sales--probably for no more than .25 each--decades ago when my kids were small. And, voila!--I found two of those now out-of-print books--"If I Ran The Zoo" and "To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street."

So I listed them on eBay. One of the auctions was shut down pretty quickly for "objectionable material" so I relisted it. Later that afternoon I heard about the title of another book "McElligot's Pool". Another search in the attic and I found that one and listed it, too. Trouble is, I made a misspelling in the title and added an extra 't'--spelling it "McElligott's Pool" and eBay would not let me change the title in the listing. This makes it more difficult for people to find it in a search. I was so upset with myself! 

By that night (well, actually, 3:00 am the next morning since I couldn't sleep and kept checking it) the auction on "If I Ran The Zoo" was up to $510! And "...Mulberry Street" was up to $85...while the misspelled "McElligot's Pool" actually had some bids and was up to $81! 

I grabbed a few hours of sleep and when I woke at 8:00 am I had emails telling me the first two auctions had been taken down for "objectionable material". Now I had a dilemma. Should I try relisting them? I decided to relist them at a lower fixed price instead of an auction, hoping they would sell before the listings could be removed. And, success--"If I Ran The Zoo" sold for $150 and "...Mulberry Street" for $69.99 immediately. I've been kicking myself since then thinking I should have asked a higher price but I just wanted them to be sold quickly without auctions being removed. 

The auction for the last book kept going. I think maybe that misspelling was providential. It was more difficult for buyers to find the book but also more difficult for eBay 'checkers' to find. 

I just finished watching the bidding play out to the final second...AND the winning bid was $190.50. Thank you, Lord, for that misspelling error, my failure to purge the attic of all those old books, and a well-timed Dr. Seuss craze. Now, if only I'd tried to put the other two books at a higher price...

Still, that's $410.49 for shipping I didn't have last week. 

God meets our needs in strange ways, too. God meets our needs--for me, for you!

What I Learned from the Peppa Pig Play House

 

Originally Written: November, 2020 

This might be long but God has taught me a lot in the past few days through this crazy toy. It started on Wednesday when I got an email giving me the age and gift desires for a 2-year-old foster child to 'adopt' for Christmas (NOT the child, just the gifts!) 

I was SO excited to read she wanted the Peppa Pig Fancy Family Home because I just happened to know it was 50% off (only 29.99) at Target AND I had a $40 coupon to use there. I reasoned I could get nice gifts for this child and spend virtually nothing. (Not a very giving attitude, as God was to convict me later) The thing was--the toy was OUT OF STOCK at Target. No matter how often I checked, it was out of stock. 

So...I did more shopping (I shop like hunters hunt) and got a less spectacular more babyish Peppa Pig model at Kohl's and spent my $40 coupon getting this child other gifts at Target. But God wouldn't let me stop thinking about that Peppa Pig house. I found a similar one at Walmart for $55.50 (almost twice as much) and God kept telling me to be generous and get this child what she wanted. So I ordered it on Thursday.

BUT I couldn't stop looking and on Friday I found a more spectacular one with 5 Peppa figures instead of 3 for a one-day sale on Amazon. It was regularly 79.99 but reduced for ONE DAY to $55.99. It seemed nicer than the Walmart one and that's what returns are for. So I ordered that one, too. This morning I was thanking God for revealing my miserly tendencies and helping me invest more than I wanted to invest in that toy. BUT I couldn't stop looking. This morning I just had to check the Target site once more and it showed they had 'limited quantities' of the $29.99 toy at Target in Erie. Well, I buzzed up there and there were TWO on the shelf. I nearly bought them both, but I restrained myself and bought one. 

So...now I have one Peppa Pig Fancy Family Home and TWO MORE (plus another model) on the way to me. Wouldn't it be funny if I ended up keeping the most expensive one after all? Meanwhile, God has taught me that I might need to open up my fists once in a while and buy something at regular price for a good cause. He's revealed some pockets of greed and dissatisfaction I didn't want to see. And He helped me buy a lot more gifts for this little peanut than I'd originally planned. Not a bad return for 4 days of shopping. And, hey, if I keep the $29.99 one I will have saved enough to pack another Operation Christmas Child shoebox online. You can pack one, too, at https://build-a-shoebox.samaritanspurse.org