Due to so many things going on in our lives we have been working on packing our Operation Christmas Child boxes whenever we can. Amanda and I did work together last week but then had to just come in separately a couple of days. Amanda is getting her Masters degree right now and I have had a lot going on with our annual Thanksgiving Picnic last Saturday, watching my nephews and creating our adoption profile book.

We try to pack the boxes with necessities as well as fun items but we always say that each box packs itself. If we end up with something extra we pray that God has a reason for it. He has a plan for each box. He knows what each child wants or needs, for He is Jehovah Jireh – the God that Provides.

This year I felt especially moved to pack this one box with two of everything. I felt that the Lord was telling me it would go to a child who has a sibling or a friend who wouldn’t receive a box. We pray for all of our boxes but I said a special prayer for this one. I look forward to finding out where this box goes as I chose to put a Follow Your Box label on it. This is an awesome way to give your money for shipping but also to be able to know what country your box goes to. Last year some of my boxes went to Madagascar. I was very excited to see a special video later in the year by Operation Christmas Child of children in Madagascar receiving shoe boxes. To look at their faces and see the joy as they opened the boxes and know that one of them could be mine, it was as close as I can currently get to handing it to them myself. Amanda and I pray that one day we will somehow be able to deliver boxes. It is a rare privilege to be able to do that as Samaritan’s Purse mainly uses local churches and their people already in the countries to deliver them. But we still pray for that opportunity.

When all was said and done we exceeded our goal of packing 170 boxes. Our total was 184! Thank you so much to my grandma and both our mothers who helped provide some of the items this year. Also to Amanda’s dad Bo who travels a lot for work and saves all his hotel soaps for us. Last but not least we thank our church who graciously gives us the space to store all our purchases throughout the year and our church body who donate funds to help pay for the shipping cost. At $7 per box the cost this year was $1288. We are blessed that they raised more than that amount! We are so happy that we can spend our time on such a worthy cause, spreading the Love of God to kids all over the world. Truly it is a simple way to be the hands and feet of Christ and to share the gospel with others in their language, where they are.

Even though we are done packing this year’s boxes that doesn’t mean that is the end. We will be taking them to the drop off location on Sunday and then in a couple of weeks my dad and I will be traveling to the processing center in Atlanta to work for two days. And of course now that we finished these boxes Amanda and I are on the hunt for items for next year’s boxes. So join us on our mission for 2013 – 2 people packing 200 boxes!