Do It!

The people who read this blog are pretty terrific.  Yes, that would be you.  I know this for a fact because several of you have taken the time lately to write just to let me know you are reading these posts and praying for me.

Just today I received a letter from a reader on the west coast.  I was so excited to hear that she went from packing one Operation Christmas Child shoe box last year to packing 60+ this year.  What could be more terrific than that?

I think most of us vastly underestimate the effect our lives have on others.  We are all interwoven by God in more ways than we can possibly realize.

The 22,647 boxes packed at last Saturday's packing party here in Erie, PA were not packed only by the hands of those at Grace Church last weekend.  They were packed in part by the hundreds of people who inspired me and the members of my team over the years and by all those who prayed, even once.

The reader whose letter came today wrote, "I've been praying for you throughout the year, especially around April when you sounded discouraged."
This packing party was saved in part by her prayers.

Each of our lives is a series of links that God uses to form a beautiful chain.  Last week's packing party would not have happened without the first link--the newspaper article I read in 1994 that prompted me to pack my first three boxes.

Last week's packing party may not have happened if I had not read an article in an OCC publication a few years later that told of a girl who packed 200 Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.  I was amazed at that and started to dream and to pray about packing 200 boxes.

Your story can be a link in someone's chain.  Your word of encouragement can be a link in someone's chain.  Your prayer, your letter, your smile, your kindness--each can be a link in someone's chain.

God wants you to make a difference in someone's world today.  It's why He made you.  You may never know on earth how you changed things for that person, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is that you do it.

Do it!

Packing Party Praises

Not gonna lie--this was an especially hard packing party year and packing party day but our sixth Community-Wide Operation Christmas Child packing party is completed.

We didn't make our goal of 23,000 (first time we fell short of the goal) but God miraculously gave us 22,647 hard-won boxes--an increase of 156 over last year.

This morning I thought we'd never come close to the goal as I made all the calls I could to try to locate the 10,500 water bottles that had not arrived.  The company in Erie said they never received the shipment and I left messages but never got an answer from the middleman trucking company or the seller.

So we spent the day trying to constantly re-figure how to combine the items we had to make as many good boxes as possible.  It was crazy and chaotic with boxes backed up and waiting to be checked and closed almost all day long.

At noon, after we'd made several such adjustments, the truck with the water bottles miraculously arrived.  It took a lot of manpower just to get them unloaded from the truck and placed.

When we went to use the water bottles we discovered the lids weren't on them and we had to find those lids (buried in the storage container, of course) and start attaching them.  It was quite a day, and by the end of it I thought if I heard someone call my name one more time I might lose my sanity.

With a lot of strategizing to figure out what to put into the boxes, we finally got to the long-awaited number of 22,011.  That 22,011th box this year was the 100,000th box packed at our packing parties since we started them in 2009.  Here are a few of our team members celebrating that 100,000th box with their head-boppers.

We worked longer than we have for the past few years with only 350 volunteers throughout the day (compared to about 600 last year) and didn't finish until 4:30 pm.   One of our volunteers counted how many boxes she packed (150) by tallying them on her hand.

Finally, every filler was used and we declared the packing completed.  Here is Agnes packing the last four boxes of the day.

Clean up was a tough one this year, too.  We had just a trickle of volunteers left at the end, but our exhausted team worked like troopers.

I was so careful to be sure we ordered plenty of boxes, had plenty of cartons, and had plenty of truck space.  After all that, we had four cartons of leftover boxes, we had leftover cartons, and we had way too much space left on the truck.

Still, 22,647 miracles are a lot for one day.

Packing Party Problems

Today we were back at the church this morning to set up for tonight's Operation Christmas Child youth packing party.  My husband was set to camp out at the church as he waited for the trailer to be delivered and for a large truck delivery of 10,500 water bottles I ordered two weeks ago.

After a bit of set-up work, Linda and Pam (my team's prayer coordinator and media coordinator) and I decided to do a Jericho prayer walk.  We walked around the church property seven times while we prayed for all the aspects of the packing party and claimed God's victory.

After praying, the challenges started.  First we got a call from the dispatcher for the OCC trailer who confessed he'd forgotten to order the truck to be dropped today.  He's a sweet brother in Christ who made calls and arranged to get it dropped tomorrow morning and then prayed over the phone with me for our packing party.

Then I checked the tracking info on the order of water bottles and discovered they aren't scheduled to be delivered until next Monday--two days after the packing party.  I spent two hours trying to reach someone in the company's customer service department and when I finally reached them they told me I needed to fill out an online form.

I know this is not a surprise to God but I'm not sure yet what kind of good He's going to bring out of this.  We're still short over 6,000 stuffed animals and the water bottles were planned to fill in that lack.

As soon as the packing party started tonight it began to rain in earnest making it a wet trek for the guys trying to load the truck tonight (the truck that is still placed in the wrong spot because no driver arrived to move it today.)

We had fewer youth there for this year's packing party and we ended the evening with 4,000 boxes in the truck (compared to 6,917 at this time last year.)

Maybe God has plans for us to do fewer boxes this year?

I took great care to be sure we had sufficient truck space and cartons this year.  Will we now not fill those cartons and that space?

I looked forward to packing at least 22,011 boxes to get to that 100,000 goal tomorrow.  Maybe God is telling me not to focus on the number of boxes--even though each of them represents a child waiting to know God's love.

And maybe God has someone planned to walk in tomorrow with a donation of 7,000 stuffed animals.  Or a miracle delivery.

Maybe....

On The Brink

Like children excited to open their boxes at an Operation Christmas Child shoe box distribution, we wait...

Lord, here we are again on the brink of another miracle.  All year long we have prayed and waited and shopped and waited and hauled and waited.  We have loaded and unloaded and waited.  We cried to You in the night and sought You in the morning.

We asked for wisdom about whether to have a large packing party this year and we waited.  You answered us.  You directed us.  You challenged us.

And so...here we are again on the brink of another miracle.

Father, we put each of the treasures You have provided back into Your hand and ask You to put each one into the box where it belongs.

Jehovah Jireh give us full hands and full boxes and full hearts that spill over onto all the people who come from our community to pack these boxes with us.

We're on the brink and we look to You, Father.

We wait.

We pray according to Ephesians 3:20 in the same power that raised Jesus from the dead for immeasurably more.

Amen.

Packing Party Prepping

This is packing party prepping week for our Operation Christmas Child packing party and God is already doing great things for us.

The cartons, boxes and labels were delivered on Monday and volunteers were soon hard at work getting those labels attached to the boxes so they'll be ready for filling.  As of last night we have all but 5600 of those boxes labeled.  Amazing!

And we've been hard at working putting soap into bags and have fewer than 6000 more to bag.

We're so far ahead this year that we have at least one packing line completely set up and waiting for 21 students coming on a field trip from a Christian school to pack boxes today.

I can't believe how neat everything looks this year.  Frankly, that scares me a a little.

I was disappointed last night when I opened a few bales of the washcloths we bought and found they were literally a balled-up mess and had some that were stained or had holes in them.  We are laying them out as flat as possible and praying they'll still be a blessing to the kids who receive them.  Should have checked them out earlier.

Now I'm strategizing about how much labeling and soap bagging to leave for the actual day of the party so we have sit-down jobs available for those who can't walk around and fill boxes.

I'm also, as always, looking at lists and wondering if we will really have enough items to fill 23,000 boxes.  We don't have many miscellaneous filler items at all and I'm not sure how they will hold out.

So I have to put the lists aside and pray.  Lord, you are sovereign.  Use these simple items we've collected.  Multiply them and use them to bless children around the world for Your glory.

When The Sun's Shining Down

The past few days have been soaked in sun--both literally (with blue skies and temps in the 70s) and spiritually with answered prayers and blessings abounding.

Let me count just a few of the blessings in the past 48 hours--

1)  Rock The Lakes Erie--Three years ago our Operation Christmas Child Regional Director, Leigh Fisher, called to say she was contacted by a representative from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to ask about churches in Erie that participated in OCC.  Leigh told me she referred them to me and I received a call asking me to compile a list of leading pastors in our area.  The list was created, a meeting was planned, and I had the privilege of being there when the idea of inviting Franklin Graham to Erie for a festival was proposed.  I never became part of the planning for the event but I've been praying through these years just the same.

This weekend I was able to watch hundreds of people from my community make a decision for Christ.  Pretty amazing stuff to witness.  My personal favorite answer to prayer this weekend came when one of my blog readers made  the long trip from her home in Virginia to Erie to bring me 400+ stuffed animals AND to invite some relatives she'd been praying for to come to Rock The Lakes.  Two of her aunts attended with her and one of them prayed to give her life to Jesus.  That's the ultimate highlight.

2)  Getting our OCC storage container unloaded for the upcoming packing party.   Our pastor made an unexpected announcement in the church service asking for volunteers to help and we even had some new friends from donor ministries with Samaritan's Purse and BGEA who came to serve.  We had the container unloaded in under an hour and the organization of the items in the church is phenomenal.  That sun was sure shining.

3)  Amazing deliveries -- Today our first truck for the packing party was scheduled to be dropped at the church sometime after noon.  When I arrived this  morning a bit after 9:00 am the truck was already sitting there--in the wrong spot.  By God's grace, though, it's actually positioned in a place that's more accessible for offloading the 11 pallets of supplies by hand more conveniently.  And my husband figured out they can move it to the right spot when they drop the second truck on Friday.

An hour later there we were at the church with two male volunteers in addition to my husband (this never happens) when the ABF truck with four tall pallets from Maryland containing donated filler items arrived.

I expected we'd have to unload them by hand but I was delighted to find the truck had a lift gate and the servant-hearted driver was willing to use his pallet jack to move them into the places we needed them.  (Note:  a few years ago I'd never heard of a lift gate or a pallet jack--the things I've learned through OCC.) Best of all, those tall pallets just made it through the church door.

4) Packing party prep hours-- A handful of volunteers also bagged hundreds more bars of soap and got labels affixed to 600 boxes so far.

5) Presents in Packages--It's not my birthday or Christmas but presents keep arriving for me.  When I got to the church today there were FOUR boxes sent from Cheryl in Indiana filled with gorgeous filler items and stuffed animals--including a whole box of the sweetest little stuffed hamsters ever.

Then there was another box of stuffed animals and wonderful balls from Diane in Colorado

And another box from Courtney in Lancaster, PA with a sweet note, more animals, adorable socks, more cute fillers, and even 200 pens.

There were also several bags of stuffed animals left at my back door today

And a very special card was tucked inside the back door that had a tremendously encouraging note along with a cash donation of $250 that will go a long way to bless more children.

Blessed be Your name when the sun's shining down on me...

First Five Miracle Countdowns

We are on a countdown to our community-wide Operation Christmas Child packing party--one week from today!

For the past five days I've been posting a "miracle a day" as a way to count down the days on my personal Facebook page so I thought I'd post the first five here.

MIRACLE COUNTDOWN--DAY 10 -- only 10 days until the Erie, PA Community-Wide Shoe Box Packing Party. Today's miracle is the donation of paper for each of our boxes by McCarty Printing. If you'd told me a few years ago all our paper would be donated I never would have believed it. Praising God for Chuck and Lorelei Fournier Millet who coordinated this and for Rose Dobson, Kathy Peters Cuneo, and Ann Cuneo Fluegel who stapled it all into packets.

MIRACLE COUNTDOWN--DAY 9--only 9 days until the Erie, PA Community-Wide Shoe Box Packing Party. Today's miracle is washcloths and pencils. Last year I struggled to get enough pencils to put two in each box but this year I have plenty thanks to OCC friend Loretta Tharp who found a great deal on them and bought enough to share. Loretta also found a wonderful deal on washcloths and picked up a few (21,000) for us, too. Problem is--she lives in Waynesboro, PA--hours away from Erie. We prayed for five months about how to get them and God answered when Don and Debbie Foster Sweatman volunteered to drive to pick them up and borrowed the Pavkov's trailer to do it. What a miracle!

MIRACLE COUNTDOWN--DAY 8 -- only 8 days until the Erie, PA Community-Wide Shoe Box Packing Party. Today's miracle is soap. By God's grace we heard of a non-profit called Clean The World and were able to buy soap from them for a lower cost than we have ever purchased it before. This year I tried doing a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo (Community Rocks Inside The Box) to help pay for soap and nearly 1/2 of the cost of the soap was donated through this campaign. I am praising God for each of you who partnered with us in this way. The soap came unwrapped so faithful volunteers are now working to put each bar into a 4" X 4" bag. We will likely have some volunteers at the packing party working on this--so come join us and fill a bag!

MIRACLE COUNTDOWN--DAY 7 -- only 7 days until the Erie, PA Community-Wide Shoe Box Packing Party. Today's miracle is toothbrushes. I thought we'd be buying all our toothbrushes from the same company we purchased from last year but God had other plans. We found a great deal on colorful brushes from a company called Plak Smacker and, by God's grace were given a fluky coupon code that allowed us to get them all for an average cost of 10 cents each. I think of Oxana Nelson who shared about living in an orphanage in Russia where 20 children shared the same toothbrush. Each of these can be a special miracle for the child who receives it. Come help us put them into the boxes on October 4th!

MIRACLE COUNTDOWN--DAY 6 -- only 6 days until the Erie, PA Community-Wide Shoe Box Packing Party. Today's miracle is pens. Did you know the average pencil will write a line 35 miles long while a pen writes only 1.5 - 2 miles? That's why this year we're putting 3 pencils and only 1 pen in our shoe boxes (well, really it's because we got a great deal on pencils.) This year we bought 20,000 really nice misprinted commercial pens and used a 25% off coupon code to get the price down to 3.75 cents per pen. Funny story--the company said they were being shipped by Greyhound. Interesting. We got a call to arrange delivery to the church and when they were actually delivered they were driven up by a guy in a Toyota Celica who picked them up from the Greyhound and transported them. We also got pens locally on sale and using various coupons (love those coupons) -- we might be a few hundred short so if you have unused pens we can use them.

Please pray with us as we count down this last week.  We have several big deliveries coming in the next few days and will need lots of wisdom and volunteers for set-up.

The good news?  God has already accomplished it!