Getting Carded

 

"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. 

Let It Undo You

 

In today's sermon about God's love as expressed by Paul in Romans 8:35-39, Pastor Derek said our response to the matchless love of God should be to "Let it undo you!" 

So I am breaking 8 months of blogging silence to record some of the ways I am undone by His love today.

I've been convicted over the past year or two of my lack of intentionality in observing a Sabbath. Unfortunately, I haven't acted on that conviction in any regular way, but yesterday I felt compelled to get all the piles of stuffed animals off the living room floor and all the stacks of shoebox clothing stored so I could really rest on this Sunday. What a difference it made to wake up and see my freshly vacuumed living room floor sans those piles!

As I searched this Sabbath afternoon for ways to recount manifestations of God's love for me, I grabbed a journal from my bookshelf that I wrote in 2008-2009. A few hours of reading the lines I wrote in the early morning hours of the days that year gave me lots of revelations.

It was a year of transition as we left the church I attended for 56 years and looked for a new church home. I recorded how I continued going back to that church basement and packing shoeboxes and how God allowed me to finish 7,272 boxes that year with the help of our OCC team and friends. I had no idea what the future would hold; on 11/19/08 I wrote, "I don't know if we'll ever pack that many again, but I praise You, God, for all these gospel opportunities that You've provided."

Day after day and week after week I recorded all my angst--my besetting sins of overeating and procrastination and irritability, and my inability to use my time as wisely as I wanted to for the Lord. And I realized in many ways those journal entries of 14 years ago mirror my current journal writings. I still struggle with the same sins; I still have much of the same angst. But God hasn't changed, and for some unfathomable reason He is still in love with me. Tears fill my eyes this moment as I think about it. 

Some things have changed, though. As I read my thoughts from 14 years ago I see I was concerned about spending too much money on shoeboxes, yet it was only a fraction of what God's provided for me to spend now. I wondered if we'd ever be able to pack as many boxes ever again as we packed in 2008...and now we regularly pack more than three times that many! 

I've been thinking lately about how tired I feel, but I see from this journal that I constantly complained 14 years ago about being tired. I hope this means that in 2037, if the Lord tarries, I'll still be complaining about being tired but also still carrying on by God's grace and with all the help He gives to get His will done--whatever that is in 2037. I'm not sure I'll ever be as positive as cheery Caleb of the Old Testament who insisted he was as strong at age 80 as he was 40 years earlier, because positivity has never been my strength, but who knows? God may do that miracle, too. 

I'm definitely taking this day off from making decisions, but in the next two days we'll be finalizing dates and preliminary details for our 2023 big shoebox packing party. In addition to perusing old journals today I've been looking over lists of all the items God's given us over these years since our first large packing party in 2009. I'll tell you, it's astounding.

On 7/08/09 I had a phone call with Joey White from OCC, and he asked if we'd consider doing a special large packing party. I had no experience, but the church I'd then recently started attending came around me to get that job done. God knew I needed that support! He worked out every detail and only 10 weeks later, on 9/26/09, we had 150 volunteers who got 5,577 boxes packed in under four hours. Only God! 

Year by year He keeps extending His grace over every roadblock to make this happen. Lord willing, this will be our 15th packing party, and we've packed over 304,000 more boxes since I wrote that journal in 2008. I stand amazed at what He does every year. 

Sometimes I just need to sit back. And breathe. And remember. And let it undo me. 

Ready For Action

 Round two! More loading and unloading of trucks. More tables set up. More prepping of items and arranging them on tables. And...we're ready to go again.

We worked hard on Friday and made stops at four different storage areas to get all our items to First Alliance Church. There was another neat way God saved us some work. By His grace I'd been in the container two weeks before and as God prompted me to take a count of washcloths and toothbrushes I realized we wouldn't have enough for all the boxes in this packing session. I was able to order more of each. The toothbrushes arrived promptly, but this week we still hadn't received the washcloths. On Thursday I communicated with the seller and found they'd been delivered to Birkmire (the trucking company where we rent our container) a week ago. On Friday when we were there to load our other items they were able to use the fork lift to bring them to us and we loaded the ones we need for this week and put the rest into the container for storage. It was great I didn't have to go up there earlier when they arrived and load them myself! ThankYou, Lord! 

We organized and got things set up so by that evening we were ready for Aaron to pick up the slippers from the warehouse that was generously storing them. God provided just the right number of volunteers to get them unloaded and placed along the walls. Thank You, Lord!

But when I counted the cartons I realized we were short almost 1600 pairs of slippers. I had a sleepless night trying to figure out what happened. I wasn't at the warehouse when the slippers were loaded but I told them to leave 12 pallets of them behind in the warehouse. I was thinking there were 8 cartons on each pallet and didn't realize that this load had pallets with 12 or even more cartons on them! We figured this out and I was able to get a truck to go back to the warehouse and get 68 more cartons of slippers back to First Alliance. I'm so glad we didn't find that out during this week. Thank You, Lord! 

So...we're ready for action! Bring on the volunteers and let the packing begin! 

Packing Number One Is Done

 

After months of uncertainty, hundreds of decisions, and many hours of preparation our first 2022 shoebox packing session is done. Not including setup, we planned to be in the building for five days--four days to pack the boxes and one day for cleanup.

By God's grace and because of so many excellent volunteers we finished packing all 11,200 boxes in 2.5 days. We worked another half day on Wednesday to start cleanup and finished on Thursday morning.

It was a good week--not without some hitches, of course, but a blessed week nonetheless. We were glad to have children and families join us again and loved watching them work so well together. 

I'm not sure how many cartons/boxes we had in the truck at the end of Monday night because a sudden storm came up and blew rain into the back of the truck so we had to quickly close it and pile cartons in the gym until Tuesday morning.

We did have that first truck filled and ready to pull by noon on Tuesday, though, and packed another 3400 after that to make a total of 9000 boxes by Tuesday night. The other 2,200 were filled on Wednesday by around 1:00 and the second truck was ready for its journey.

I want to praise God for so much answered prayer! We're grateful the high temperatures of Saturday and Monday (when we melted in the gym with no air conditioning) cooled off for Tuesday and Wednesday to make for much more pleasant packing. We could not have asked for a better and more flexible crew of volunteers to get this job done.

Last year the stress of managing volunteers left me frankly burned out and I was reluctant to face another set of packing parties this year. But God answered that need too when Ellen stepped up to take point on orienting and placing volunteers who always seemed to drift in one by one right after she'd given an orientation at the beginning of a shift. 

Having a larger facility was a true blessing. We had all our cartons, boxes, and supplies in the same area all at the same time. Granted, there was still a bit of chaos but people stepped up to break down all that cardboard when it was needed and pitched in to sweep up all those little pieces of red cardboard 'confetti' left from folding boxes and stock the tables at the end of every evening. 

Three of us worked this morning to finish cleaning and storing and were amazed when First Alliance offered to allow us to leave the things we need to use again in September right there in the gym. Praise God! 

Tonight I'm making calculations for September. I was a bit shocked to realize we still need another 165 reams of paper folded into packets of 15 sheets of paper each. I need to see if our paper folder Steve can complete that many in four weeks or we'll be farming that job out also. 

Still, despite the conflicts and challenges, there are 11,200 boxes on their way to Charlotte for the next leg of the journey. One down and only one more to go. 

It's A Setup

 

Here we are again on Packing Party Eve. It's been a long road this year with lots of prayer and soul searching about whether we should even attempt to do a packing party this year. Just six months ago we had very few anchor items and no prospects for buying them on the horizon. Between that and some personal problems caused by my own sinful nature it seemed last year's 13th packing party might be the last.

Then in early February at our Area Coordinators' Planning Meeting we were singing "Oceans" during worship and I had an impression that we should not only have a packing party this year but we should pack 19,000 boxes. I still don't know if that will happen but God is getting us closer.

In the past six months God provided a new venue, more than 30,000 beautiful "Wow" items for boxes and another 37,000 stuffed animals. And while my personal sin problems won't be solved this side of heaven, I've recognized them, tried to confess them, and asked for prayer from everyone I can think of. 

I'd be lying if I said I am totally confident we will get to the end of this packing week with two trucks filled with packed shoe boxes and that I caused no offense to anyone. 

If anything the battle just keeps getting stronger. We have one packing party team member and her family totally out because of illness and one who has faithfully loaded our trucks for years is recovering from surgery and cannot lift. Because of work schedules and other issues we are down to a few team members who can manage volunteers, stock tables, load the truck, and keep up with cardboard disposal. 

But God has a habit of bringing unlikely people to come alongside us in unlikely ways. I hope I'll be telling you about some of them in my next 'victory' posts.

Meanwhile, because of the tireless work of some non-team volunteers yesterday all 8,000 baseball hats are out of their boxes. And...well...I'd say we have quite a few folded boxes ready to pack!

Catching Up

 

Writing. I haven't done it for some time. At least not on this blog. And tomorrow begins our official packing for 2022, so I thought I should catch up a bit on all the ways Jehovah Jireh has answered our prayers over the past three months or so.

First, the facility at Grace Church where we hosted our community-wide packing party since 2009 is constructing a video production studio in the area we used to use for packing boxes. By God's grace, at the end of April we were able to secure a new venue at First Alliance Church. This provides a larger space for us and the church was so accommodating in clearing their calendar for us to use their large gym. Unfortunately, it's not air conditioned so we're praying for cooler weather this coming week.

Then, on May 2nd, we received a truckload of items for our boxes. As always, we prayed hard about all the details of this delivery. This was the culmination of five months of steps orchestrated by our merciful God and brought us 19,000+ baseball hats, over 1,500 pairs of children's character slippers, and 6 pallets of miscellaneous fillers. Those pallets of fillers were a gamble but God provided over 2,000 stuffed animals as well as many fun toys on them. 

At the beginning of June God blessed us with the opportunity to buy more than 12,000 more pairs of children's slippers. That's more than we need for this year, but we didn't want to pass up the opportunity. We weren't sure how to get them shipped but ultimately Logistics Plus, a local shipping company, arranged the shipping for us at their cost and that saved us money in this crazy economy with gas prices soaring. 

We also weren't sure where we could store this latest truckload of slippers. Thank You, Lord, for providing the Danowskis to offer us space in their newly rented warehouse. I was out of town with our ministry coordinators at Operation Christmas Child recruitment training when the truck arrived on 6/18/22 but there were enough volunteers to get the job done and God even provided a man with a fork lift to unload the truck. A couple weeks later we needed to move the 9 pallets of large plush bunnies from that warehouse. I didn't know where we would put them so I put out a plea on Facebook and God provided what we needed! 

We were still praying for about 7,000-8,000 more stuffed animals for this year. God did "exceedingly, abundantly beyond", though, and Ellen found a contact to buy 27,000 from a man in Ohio who was selling the Beanie Baby collection amassed by his 90-year-old father who died this past May. Going to pick them up was quite an adventure, but God worked out the details. Four team members helped finance the $10,000 cash purchase plus another $1000 to pay for renting a truck to transport them. Now we have more than we need for this year and will have to move them again to another storage spot once this year's packing is done. It seems God is preparing us for 2023 packing already. 

And here we are just a few weeks later getting ready to start this year's packing. Two days ago we received our shipment of cartons and boxes to get ready for attempting to pack 11,200 boxes to fill two trucks. We prayed much over the delivery and God blessed us as the truck driver used his pallet jack to pull the pallets into the gym for us.  Later that day we took a borrowed truck to pick up stuffed animals from storage. 

Yesterday we had to load and unload two large trucks full of items from our main storage container and another team member's basement. God provided the trucks, the volunteers, and a DRY (though hot!) day for the job. By 3:00 yesterday afternoon we had the gym set up and ready to pack--the earliest we've done this for the past three years. 

Today we're enjoying a sabbath and praising God for a busy three months that brought us to the brink of another packing adventure. Tomorrow we start and trust God to do it AGAIN! 

Red Sea Deliverance

 

Did you ever go through a period of pull and tug that feels like a bit of a Red Sea experience? Our packing party team has had months of this. I can't even explain all the ways that I, for one, have felt confusion and a lack of discernment since last summer about whether God even wanted us to continue packing large numbers of boxes. 

This feeling isn't anything new, really, I guess. This is a hard task and every year I wonder whether God is telling us it's time to end it. This year, though, has been especially hard. We found out last year we'd be losing much of the space we've used for packing since we began these packing parties in 2009.

Then, last fall, we lost storage containers and went from three down to one. At the same time we lost alternate basement storage space, too. And last year's packing sessions had depleted our team in so many ways. Were we too exhausted and too old to do this again? 

Still, I think each person on our team kept thinking of the children who receive these shoeboxes. We know each box means one more child and his/her family will have an opportunity to hear of God's love. So, we've continued moving forward step by step. 

This morning I read again the story of the crossing of the Red Sea--that amazing deliverance of God's people. Don't we all long for that kind of deliverance? We want to see God come through for us in inexplicable but tangible ways. And...He does!

The past few days have been nothing short of amazing. My husband and I went to meet with the staff at another nearby church about the possibility of using their large gym to pack our boxes this year and they were so welcoming and accommodating. It sounds dramatic but it was honestly a bit like watching the Red Sea part.

We also got several donations of stuffed animals over the last few days. It's just encouraging to see God provide like that. And by God's grace we're awaiting a shipment of items for packing this year's boxes even as we trust God for the 10,000 stuffed animals and additional fillers we need to round them out. We're not through the Red Sea yet but we're following Him.

I just re-read something I wrote last year on this day when I read the same passage in Exodus about the Red Sea and wanted to record it here to save it:

Steps When You Face A Red Sea:

1) Settle down (don't fear!)

2) Stand by (wait expectantly)

3) Stay silent but go forward (let God fight for you)

4) Stretch out your staff (act when God tells you to)

5) See salvation (watch for deliverance)

6) Serve the Savior (rejoice in His salvation) 

Making Space

 

Does anyone else feel like life involves constantly making space? In a spiritual sense I've been struggling lately to move out sinful attitudes and bitterness to make space to love others and abide in Jesus. It's a never-ending battle I've been fighting all my life. Even with the Holy Spirit working in me I can never seem to make space the way I should. I'm so glad Paul wrote in Romans 7:15 "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." It gives me hope to hear him say he struggled too.

And in a packing party sense we were making space today in our storage container. We know we have to use every square centimeter of that space as wisely as possible so today five of us worked to get the things we know we won't need until later to the back end of the container and the things we may need sooner to the front. After two hours it looks so much better, we have a schematic in hand to remind us of what is where, and I feel relief. 

Back in the days when we did one large packing party and unloaded the container all at the same time it didn't make so much difference. Now, though, we're pretty sure we're doing a week of packing in August and another week in September so we don't want to have to unload it all and repack it. The fact that our storage is miles away from our anticipated packing venue makes it even trickier. 

Speaking of venue, we finally got our shipping window dates so we can begin to make plans. It doesn't help that we got those right before Easter when it's tough to make any connections with church staff, but we had a team meeting yesterday and made some decisions so today I'm going to craft emails and try to get some meetings set up. 

The main reason we had to get that storage unit ready for service is that God gave us favor and allowed us to make that large order of tens of thousands of shoebox items (probably 36 pallets of them) at great prices. We're not home yet. We still need to pray in another 10,000 stuffed animals and some other fillers but we have many of the basic items. It's possible we could fill four trucks IF we get a venue and can recruit enough volunteers to pack. 

Meanwhile, I'm still praying God will help me make space to store what I need to store and clean out what I need to clean out--both physically and spiritually. Neverending effort for sure. 

Working It Out

There are still so many questions that need to be worked out about this year's shoebox packing and so many decisions that can't even be made. We're waiting to hear from Operation Christmas Child about the directives for this year and the shipping windows. We're waiting to hear from a major supplier about whether items we want to order are available at a price we can afford. We're doing a lot of waiting.

But while we're waiting God is blessing us in increments we can handle. Last week it was the paper donation. Then yesterday I picked up a donation of new tote bags to include in our boxes. Yesterday I spent some time working on rolling them and securing them with rubber bands.

Working. I think of all the ways over the years God has worked to get the prep work done for our shoebox packing. Back in the early years we did it ALL in one Saturday event. We didn't fold boxes ahead of time. We didn't make up paper packets ahead of time. We didn't bag crayons ahead of time. Looking back, it seems crazy. But somehow it worked! We had hundreds of volunteers and we used most of the church building. In one room young Girl Scouts joined with older volunteers to count out and staple paper. In another room volunteers bagged crayons. And all over the church--even on the stage in the worship center--people were folding boxes. All this while lines of volunteers walked around filling those boxes. 

Somehow, though, we found the wisdom of preparing in advance. I started taking boxes of crayons or paper to different individuals so they could work on them. I spent a lot of time trying to keep track of who had what and driving around town to deliver crayons or paper to people who needed more. Then one year we got a donation of jump rope handles and started making jump ropes. Now I was driving around town delivering jump rope handles and pieces of rope to volunteers who assembled them. I counted out the handles by the hundreds and paired them with equal numbers of rope lengths but there were still always calls that said, "I'm short two jump rope handles." Sigh.

When all that organization and driving around became too much we came up with the idea of having work days throughout the spring and summer. Volunteers would come to the church where we had supplies right there and all would work together to accomplish the paper stapling, crayon bagging, and jump rope making along with other assorted tasks. This worked well for the most part...until...

COVID

We still had a few smaller work days but with masking and social distancing and limited group sizes it became harder to pull these off. Most work days in the last two years involved just our small team working together so much work was still done in homes. 

This brings us to 2022. We no longer have a donor for jump rope handles so we're not assembling ropes. We've found a few highly competent volunteers to fold paper and bag crayons. This assures higher quality and though we're still delivering supplies it's only to a few trusted people. 

Now that pandemic restrictions are lifted some are wondering if we'll go back to having community work days. Our team hasn't made a final decision but the short answer is--probably, no. We no longer have storage at the church where we've packed the boxes all these years and we also don't have access to the area of the church where we held work days and packed boxes before. We could potentially use another area of the church or find another church to host work days, but our storage is now miles away. In order to do a simple task like sorting cups we need to transport the cups to the area where we're having the work day, sort the cups (a task that would probably only take a half hour with 15 people) and then transport all those cartons back to the storage container. Logistically it doesn't make sense. 

So...how will we accomplish these tasks like sorting? I'm not sure yet. Maybe that prep work will be part of the packing week, like it was in the 'old days'. Or maybe a few people from the team will take things home and work on them ahead of time. 

There's a lot we're still just working out. 

Jireh You Are Enough

 So...this blog has been dormant now for over eight months. That's just crazy. For the past few years I've mostly used this blog to help me remember details of past packing parties. That won't help much for 2021 since I didn't even post about those. By God's grace we packed a total of 25,719 boxes between a week in August, 2021 and another week in September, 2021.

In the six months since then we/I have been waffling back and forth about what our packing for 2022 will hold. Compared to the past few years we have very few items in hand to pack for this fall. In 2020 and in 2021 God provided in advance a lot of our major anchor items for the boxes, and that gave us confidence to push ahead despite the challenges of the pandemic. So far, though, we haven't seen that provision in 2022.

Truthfully, 2021 was a struggle with a lot of spiritual battles that put me on the losing side. I unsuccessfully fought wars with envy, fear, irrational anger, and a host of other personal sins that dragged me down and caused dissension and turmoil that has lasted for more than half a year. 

This year we only have about 3/4 of the storage space we had last year. Our storage container next to the church where we hold our packing events had to be moved because of construction and that construction makes it impossible for us to use the space we'd previously used for work days and packing. 

With this trifecta of team issues, lack of storage, and lack of items we've been waffling about how many boxes to even try to pack this year. For me it's been a yo-yo effect. At first I thought we should only try to do one week of packing with two trucks--possibly 10,000 boxes. Our prayer team continued to pray, however, and when I attended our Area Coordinators' Planning Meeting in February we were singing the song "Oceans" and I sensed God telling me we should pack 19,000 boxes in 2022.

The next day we had a team meeting via Zoom and when I told the team about my impressions for packing 19,000 boxes at our packing event I didn't sense much enthusiasm. But we kept praying.

Then a week later I found a possible lead on a large quantity of anchor items that would allow us to come closer to packing that 19,000 number. Unfortunately, weeks have gone by and I have yet to confirm the availability of those items and whether I can purchase them at a reasonable price.

Maybe I didn't hear God clearly?

Then world events started to unravel with war in Ukraine and I began to fear rising delivery prices and increased costs for items to purchase. Still, we have no confirmation about items or whether we can find additional storage if we need it. 

Last week's sermon was about being obedient to God so we can see Him work. I immediately thought of that goal of 19,000 boxes. Do I/we just need to be obedient? We have almost 20,000 of the basic items but still need those anchor items and fillers. 

Lately I keep listening (and trying to sing along) to the song "Jireh, You are enough...Forever enough. Always enough. More than enough." I believe the truth and the more I sing it the more I am reminded of its truth. Jehovah Jireh, God our provider, is able to provide what we need for 10,000 boxes or 19,000 boxes--enough items, enough volunteers, enough wisdom--for whatever He wants us to pack.

More than enough. 

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

2020 Peculiar Pandemic Packing...All This Abundance...

 

"All this abundance that we have provided for building...comes from your hand and is all your own." 1 Chronicles 29:16

I'm not sure 2020 will be known in most circles as a year of abundance but it certainly has been that for our Operation Christmas Child team here in Northwestern PA.

By God's grace He provided almost all the items we needed to pack 22,000 boxes before the pandemic hit. Had it not been for that it might have been easy to say we'd skip our large shoebox packing party for 2020--our 12th year. But with God's provision so evident we KNEW (and kept reminding one another) that He wanted these boxes to be packed.

It was that assurance that kept us going despite roadblocks along the way. We lost our storage space and had to move most of our items with just a few weeks' notice. On the day we met with the church pastor to confirm plans for our September packing party the governor of PA limited indoor gatherings to no more than 25 people. We knew then we'd have to shift gears to make this packing party happen.

But God went before us to open new doors and happen it did! Granted, we could only have fewer than 25 people practicing social distancing to pack. Only 5-10 people packed at a time at individual stations while others folded boxes, stocked items, or dealt with the mountains of cardboard. 

We packed one truck in August with a total of 5499 boxes in 3 days and today we finished filling 3 more trucks with another 17,198 boxes and it only took us 5 days this time!

As I look back over my journal at prayer requests through these past months I see how God answered us so clearly step by step. We prayed about items to purchase last October and November and God gave us direction. We prayed about a source for balls and whether to even purchase them and God answered (we bought all the wholesaler had so don't even ask me where we got them--lol.)

We prayed over deliveries and trucks and volunteers and God provided in every way at just the right times. 

We hated not being able to involve the whole community this year but we still prayed to make an impact in the lives of people on "this side of the box." And wouldn't you know it--on one night of packing a sweet woman wandered in looking for Celebrate Recovery. It's no longer held at the church but God provided another volunteer there who was packing (the only few hours she was there this week) who was able to offer support to this woman as they packed boxes and promised to take her to a meeting. I'm telling you--pandemic or not--God is ALWAYS up to something! 

Packing was easier and quicker than we imagined possible with so few people. And today, before noon, Donna folded the LAST box. 

After all these months, we filled the last box that was sent. I even found one extra at home from 2 years ago and we filled that one, too.

Since we cleaned each day as we went it was a breeze to get everything stored back in our container. We even had the time and energy for the core packing party team to debrief a bit and celebrate. Something that usually has to wait for a few weeks until we recover.

With this our 12th year of packing parties we just crossed the quarter million mark. This makes a total of 256,126 gospel opportunities packed in a dozen years. 

Our theme verse for this 2020 Peculiar Pandemic Packing Party was from Nehemiah 2:18 "Rise up and build!" It's no coincidence I'm sure that my morning Bible reading was in 1 Chronicles 29--David's prayer as he prepared for his son to build a temple to the Lord. Verse 16 reads "O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own." 

I was able to read that with my team today as we thanked God for His provision for every step and for every box. Great is His faithfulness! 

Not Feasible

 

I am so glad we don't serve a God of the feasible.

On Friday and Saturday we had our packing party core team doing setup for this week's packing of Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. By God's grace we were able to complete setup in record time so we began packing boxes. Praise God we have 2,040 in the truck already!

In the midst of the day of packing I had a little conversation with a young man who is experiencing our packing for the first time. He's a family friend of one of our team members and drove 5.5 hours to come work with us. He asked me what our goal was for the number of shoeboxes to pack this week and when I told him it's 17,000 he answered, "That's not feasible!"

His words have been rolling around in my head so I looked up the definition of the word 'feasible' and it's "possible to do easily or conveniently."

Well, by that definition pretty much anything in our Operation Christmas Child world is not feasible because not much of it is easy or convenient.

This morning I'm thinking how glad I am we don't serve a God of the feasible. 

Is it feasible that God would provide almost all the items we needed to pack 22,000 boxes before the pandemic hit? 

Is it feasible that one casual contact by a team member would result in a donor going online to search out Operation Christmas Child and make contact with our regional office so he could donate a truckload of fillers? 

Is it feasible that a man I barely know would drive across the state with a truck full of clothing items to donate?

Is it feasible that one team member could singlehandedly find and purchase more than 13,000 Beanie Babies this year?

Is it feasible that one team member also could put together 22,000 plus school packs in her home?

Is it feasible that another team member completed 6000 jump ropes and sorted and stored countless bins of clothing?

Is it feasible that one team member secured and financed the storage of two truckloads full of items? 

Is it feasible that a small team of 18 members (only 10 or so able to be active year-round and most of them over the age of 60) would be able to orchestrate the packing of 22,000 shoeboxes in 6 days in one small area with only 20 people at a time in the midst of a global pandemic?

The answer is a resounding "NO". This young man saw the truth. None of this is feasible.

BUT our God is not a God of the feasible. Our God is a God of the impossible. And we stand on tiptoe to see Him do it again. 

ps--this cute bear is our mascot for this 2020 Pandemic Packing Party and he is reminding us to "Rise up and build!"

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.