Loaves, Fishes, and 9-1-1 (by Lisa)

Well, we were packing. Again. It is such a long, and sometimes tiring project. We decided to try to gather the boxes and bags of donations, and try to put some sort of order and organization to them today. We met in Robin’s church basement because it is a pretty central location to everyone, plus it has lots of great space to work in. When I arrived at the church, with my car packed to the roof with donations, I almost fell over. I had only seen the mountains of donations in my house. Now multiply that mountain by 5. Or maybe 6. We had so many donations it looked like a store. Robin was already on the ball, having begun to sort and band together clothes of similar sizes. Shoe sorting was well underway. I hardly knew where to begin. I decided to start helping with shoes. I bet we had 1,000 pairs of shoes. Our first task was to take all of the flip flips and put them into large suction bags. We found out if you line them all up in the bag, and then suck the air out, you can fit at least 40 pairs in each bag. We filled bag after bag after bag. Just when we thought we got them whittled down, we would find another bag or box of shoes to deal with. Finally, after packing the last of what seemed to be the last of all of the shoes, I said something like, “Yeah, we think we are done, and then we will see that one box of shoes that we didn’t see before.” No sooner than I said that, then I walked across the room to gather a pile of sweatshirts that needed to be packed. I lifted them, and guess what was hiding under the sweatshirts. Another box of shoes. 50 pair. God was certainly keeping the steady supply coming.

We packed for hours. Crayons, pencils, chalk, snacks for VBS, socks, undies, clothes, toys, stuffed animals, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo. It seemed endless. As we were filling suitcases, Mattie and Laura took the job of weighing each one carefully. We have to be so careful to stay under 50 pounds, because anything over that will be a huge problem at the airport. We finally got to the point where all of the tables were cleared, and we realized we still had room to spare. Imagine that! Thousands of pounds of donations, and still room for more. Just as we were cleaning up, we noticed two suitcases that had been donated to our team to use if needed. Because we didn’t think we needed them, we hadn’t even moved them an inch. As soon as I picked up the largest suitcase to put it in my car, I thought, “This is a really heavy suitcase. Too heavy to be empty.” Bingo. Filled with clothes. A huge bundle of clothes. And the smaller one, filled with clothes. Isn’t it just like God to provide more than you think you might have?

By now, you kind of get the “Loaves and Fishes” theme. But 9-1-1? Well, one of the things that I did not tell you about Robin’s church is that it has an elevator. Extremely helpful for getting large suitcases into the basement! Mattie and Laura had loaded up the elevator with suitcases to take to the car. One of the suitcases tipped over, and pushed the emergency button on the side of the elevator. There is a big sign in the elevator by the emergency button that states something like this: “Warning! Pushing this button immediately places a call to 9-1-1 emergency services.” So, within seconds 9-1-1 was called and we were listening to the operator asking, “What is your emergency?” Unfortunately, we did not read the “How to talk to 9-1-1 in the elevator” instructions, and we lost connection. We all know what happens when someone calls 9-1-1 and then doesn’t talk. An entire stream of emergency personnel rushing to the location, right? Luckily, Robin called again via the elevator button, and canceled the emergency call. Whew! Sound crazy? Not to us – just a typical event for the Guatemala Crew!