Again!

God did it.  Again!

Well, of course we knew He would.  That's what faith is.  But it still delights me in a new way each time.

To see God move throughout this Operation Christmas Child packing party weekend leaving His fingerprints on every detail is incredible.

There are too many stories to tell in one blog but so many of them are strange sequels that live over and over each year.

I don't know why it works this way, but it always seems the thing I feel I have plenty of is the first item we run out of.  This year it was pens.  I left extra pens at home this morning because I KNEW we had plenty.  Go ahead and laugh.

And all that angst I had over the past weeks when I couldn't figure out why the records didn't jive and I thought I was short 1,000 boxes of crayons.  Well---there were two large boxes of bagged crayons left over.

Because she read on my blog that I was nervous about running out of soap, Amy Gibson brought extra soap from Cleveland and saved the day on that front.

Oh...and the stuffed animals?  Well, once again I'm not sure how that happened exactly, but even though my last records showed we were short by 3,000-4,000 we had enough right up until the end.

Pam Dumont from Erie Christian Fellowship Church prayed and hunted and eBay-shopped for them right up until last night with a final count of 3,500.  She was washing them through the night last night.

And there were the usual logistics snafus.  We ran out of boxes.  Again.

We ran out of cartons.  Again.

We only had room on the truck because we piled 12 of the stacks of cartons six high.

There were many, many times when I just couldn't get a handle on what was going on.  And there were stretches of time when I hid in the corner praying while I worked on inspecting radios to be put into boxes (another story).

We struggled all day to have enough fillers and then ended up with 2,000 leftover radios and cases of paddleballs.  Again.

Even with all the chaos the whole packing event was finished before 2:30 pm.

And.....

The trucks have a grand total of 22,490 precious gift-filled shoe boxes on them.  Oh, and there was one more box that was found late and never made it into the cartons on the truck.  Again.

Thank you all for your encouragement, your messages, and most important of all--your prayers.

In these two days a community of 650-700 volunteers from 39 different churches and 13 community organizations, supported by the prayers of believers around the country,  joined in watching God do what only He could do.

Again.

Off and Running

When we billed it as a "youth packing party" I don't think we even anticipated how young they could be.  This little one was SO precious as she chose items for her Operation Christmas child shoeboxes.  What joy!

This morning our intrepid packing party team leader, Elizabeth Randolph, bravely hosted 18 students in 5th through 8th grade from a Christian School in Clarion for a morning packing session.  They packed 1,267 boxes to kick off the day and did a wonderful job.

There were the usual glitches of the day.  The truck was placed in the wrong spot in the night, but, by God's grace, the driver cheerfully moved it when he came to drop the second truck.

I kind of freaked out when I found out that at the morning packing session they could not get 23 boxes in a carton and so packed 22 in each of them instead.  My calculations showed we could possibly run out of both cartons and truck space with only 22 in a carton.  I asked the prayer team to pray that we could get 23 in each carton.

Today, when I got to the church I started working on the cartonizing problem, and I found I could get 23 in a carton.  Then my husband showed up and we had a little "discussion" about this.  He was pretty adamant about putting only 22 in a box.  Finally I walked away from the situation (not sure that counts as submission) and the result was that some cartonizers put 23 in a box but most only put 22 in a box.

I can't wait to see how that works out tomorrow.

Meanwhile, those energetic youth packed 5,650 boxes tonight for a day's grand total of 6,917 in the truck to start the day tomorrow.

My thoughts as I looked around the room--
Wow--this is moving way too fast.  It doesn't look like we have enough stuff left to pack another 15,000 boxes.

Then I made the mistake of counting the cartons of soap we have left and deciding we'll be short 1,000 bars even though I know I ordered 22,000 bars.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story tomorrow.

Get Ready, Get Set

Tonight was the end of four evenings of Operation Christmas Child packing party set-up.  Another great crew worked tirelessly (well, they seem tireless even though I'm sure they were tired.)

It's always hard to know what we should be accomplishing each night and there's always more that could be done.  It's amazing how much packaging needs to be opened and removed to get those treasures ready for easy access.

We now have 14,000 boxes labeled and ready to be filled.

There are always so many unknowns and this year is no exception.

I wonder how these boxes will work out and whether getting them closed properly will cause a bottleneck at the end of the line.

I wonder if the fillers will hold out and the boxes will be full enough.

On the other hand, I wonder if the fillers and stuffed animals may be too large and cause the boxes to bulge.

Tomorrow morning a group of 5th through 8th grade students from a Christian school near Clarion arrive to pack boxes and in the evening we'll host our youth packing party.

So all those questions will soon be answered.

Ready...As set as we can be....GO!

The answers to those questions will soon be revealed.

Memorial Stones

Just as the Israelites set up "memorial stones" to help them remember times of God's goodness and deliverance, I have a journal where I often record those times of deliverance in my life.  And many of those in recent years revolve around Operation Christmas Child.

Last night I couldn't fall asleep so I got up and tracked down my journals from the times of the packing parties in 2009, 2010, and 2011.  What a blessing it was to read how God worked in unique ways in each of those years.

In 2009 I wrote of the night before the party, "I couldn't fall asleep...I kept repeating Psalm 37:5 "Commit your way to the Lord.  Trust also in Him and He will do this."  Then I fell asleep.  I wrote later of the actual packing party day, "Things moved more quickly than I thought.  I ended up sending Jim over to Wesley to get more notebooks which we never ended up needing but he was also able to get candy, which we did need.  The thing I thought we had the most of was toothpaste and we ran out of that first, along with pencils and stuffed animals.  By 1:00 we'd packed 5,577 boxes and we were all cleaned up by 2:00."

Then came 2010:  "This year I thought I couldn't be surprised at the packing party but I was.  About 500 volunteers from 25 different churches and organizations were there and by 3:30 pm we'd packed 12,381 boxes.  We used every single box we had.  It was chaotic and people had to stand in line waiting but it was such a blessing..  I could sense all the prayers going up because I had a peace I knew was beyond myself."

In 2011:  "So many miracles once again.  We got the double shipment of tape and labels (the first shipment was never dropped with the cartons).  They dropped a 28 foot truck on Friday instead of a 53 foot truck but then were able to change it out in the middle of the night.  On Saturday morning we heard that Aaron Crossman who was going to run sound was sick.  When I got to Grace at 7:00 am we weren't sure what to do and then Dustin Craig who runs the worship team at Harborcreek just walked in (at 7:00 in the morning?) and took care of it.  When he turned on the sound "Bless The Lord Oh My Soul" was playing.  Not a coincidence.  ....  the truck was filled with 670 cartons and still we kept packing and filled 16,145 boxes--strange, since we were only supposed to receive 16,000.  Now we have 32 cartons left over than wouldn't fit on the truck and so much stuff left over that we could pack hundreds more boxes."

And then there was last year--when we ran out of white boxes and had to pack GO boxes to get to the goal of 21,106 shoe boxes and still had so many, many items left.

In just a few days I'll be writing about God's blessings on our 2013 packing party.

Because our Faithful God never runs out of miracles to remember.

Tuesday To-Dos

Grateful for another wonderful night of work as six team members and ten other volunteers wielded box cutters and filled the dumpster with cardboard.

More items were stacked and sorted.  Packaging was removed so items are ready for the packing lines.

And so far we have the boy/girl labels stuck onto 7,000 boxes.

The Tuesday To-Do list is knocked out and we're looking forward to Wednesday.

So It Begins...

It's the story of my life.  Everything always takes longer than I think it will.  And when it comes to preparing to pack 21,500 or more boxes...well, it takes a long time.

The day started with a true miracle.  My husband got two friends to help him with moving the delivery of boxes and cartons this morning.  While they were doing that, another truck arrived with the delivery of frisbees we thought would be delivered on Tuesday.  What a blessing to get both deliveries at the same time--when volunteers were there to help.

Tonight was the first night of packing party set-up.  A group of six team members, six adult volunteers, and one youth did an amazing job of making a dent in the tasks.

In the picture above you can see some of them hard at work putting labels on the boxes.  They finished 2000 out of the 22,000 tonight.  A good start!

Others worked hard to open boxes of coloring books, soap, and pencils.  The more we can get prepared in advance the better.

Stay tuned to hear of our progress night by night.

We're on the way.

Flying High

If you've been following this blog you know I've been praying for God to provide enough nice items to fill at least 21,500 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes at next Saturday's community-wide packing party.

With all the basic items obtained, my team and I have been praying specifically for stuffed toys and filler items--those special little treasures that make the precious boxes complete.

On Friday morning I got a call at work on my cell phone.  I try not to answer my phone at work and I was talking to another staff member at the time, but when I saw the call was from out of state I picked it up.

I'm so glad I did.

The call was from a dear Operation Christmas Child friend who brought a huge answer to those prayers we'd been praying.  He told me a shipment of 22,400 mini frisbees specially designed to fit into our boxes was being sent to us by truck.  He just wanted to confirm the address of the church for the delivery.

When I asked him what I could pay for them, he said "nothing" and told me he and his employers who manufacture these special items were "just being obedient to God."

And, OCC friends, please don't start messaging me to ask where you can get some of these.  I almost didn't blog about this because I don't want to: a) put the donor in a bad spot or: b) make it look like I rate some sort of special deal.

The truth is--God provides for each of these boxes around the world in His own way.

And, yes, I've struggled to remind myself of that when I've heard of others who've received amazing donations.

Today, though, was His time for a miracle right here.  A miracle that came from a special gift from fellow-Christians.  These folks are being obedient and meeting the needs of children around the world.  They're just allowing their gifts to pass through Erie, PA, on the way and bless us, too.

I've been flying pretty high since Friday.

And just think how high I'll be flying by this time next Saturday!