Our team spent Sunday afternoon packing 45 bags each with 50 pounds of school supplies, clothes, shoes, books, toothbrushes and paint rollers—that’s 2250 pounds of donated items.
To break this down, each of the hundreds of boxes of crayons or pencils, every pair of shoes, every last toothbrush and ruler, every supply that passed through the hands of one our team members into one of the 45 bags, was purchased and donated by an actual person. Someone heard about the need, got in their car and went to the store or picked up the phone and called a friend or made a trip to their storage unit or even took a Saturday afternoon to clean out their garage, put everything into a bag and somehow got it to CFI. Just in the last week, our school supplies were tripled and two brand new soccer nets were provided for San Marcos.
All afternoon, we stuffed and stuffed, pulled on zippers, sat on bags and squeezed out every last ounce of available space until each supply was packed. We are now charged with transporting 2250 pounds of offering into a handful of Belizean villages—2250 pounds of time, money and compassion—and distributing the items on behalf of you as the hands and feet of Christ, who is providing for a need there.
Our team leader told us at the end of the day that some of us are senders and some are goers, and that each job, each part of the body, serves its purpose. If you are a sender, THANK YOU!
Can you see the big picture, how hundreds of people were involved in this one act of service and how each person contributed to the whole, how together we are functioning as one body?
I didn’t. I almost missed it. To me, it was just a pile of clothes and shoes and books in a great big donation room, and I was weary as I saw all the bags that needed to be packed and weighed. I am thankful for a team leader who stopped us in the midst of all the activity to recognize the miracle we were witnessing. We prayed over the bags at the end of the day, for the love and kindness that filled each one, and asked God to multiply the supplies and clothing as we unpacked in each village. It could happen, you know.
"How many loaves do you have?" he asked. "Go and see." When they found out, they said, "Five—and two fish." Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand."
MARK 6:30-44
1 comment:
Congrats on getting so much stuff! That's pretty amazing.
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