Oh So Many Shoeboxes!

This week we used our time together to fill Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes and we're all really excited about it! Charlie served up some of his famous soup to get us warmed up and ready for the work ahead. It must have been a popular choice because everyone asked for the recipe.


Before long, we split up into small teams and began getting organized. The guys sat in the living room and filled baggies with an assortment of candies. It looks like Jay and Mike enjoyed having Charlie join them. We all did! He's not 'yet' an official member of our team but joins us for the social events.


Melinda and Mindy worked hard wrapping the shoeboxes. It's actually the most challenging part of the entire project. Notice how intensely focused they both are! They did a Great job!


Laurie organized and spread out all of the goodies we had purchased for the children who will receive these shoeboxes filled with lots of great stuff! I think that we all enjoy the giving as much as the children love receiving them.

The Deacons bench was filled with toys!

The dining room table was piled high with clothing and school supplies! And we had personal hygiene items like hairbrushes, combs, soaps, toothbrushes and toothpaste scattered at other locations around the room.


Once we had the boxes wrapped, the candy bagged and the goodies all laid out and organized, it was time for the fun to begin. Everyone got into the packing of boxes. With lots of encouragement, even Jay and Mike got involved and did a great job!


Charlie and I are so proud to see that two of our four legged family members helped us too! Since it's become a Dyer family tradition to fill shoeboxes for OCC, it's great seeing even our cats getting in on the fun.

When we were finished, we had filled sixteen boxes ! I sure hope that Christian, a young friend in PA, is happy to learn that lots of poor children will be helped!

It took us a bit longer than expected to get all of our work done but we made time to enjoy Mindy's cheese cake and truffles! I hope that this posting hasn't made you envious or hungry.
Since Dedication Sunday isn't until Nov. 8, who knows how many more boxes we might fill?

We strive always to be In Line With The Word,
Sally and friends

Spectacular

This is one of the most beautiful seasons of the year here in the North East! The leaves have turned to fiery shades of red and orange and mellow shades of gold, yellow and brown. Contrast those with the brilliant blue skies and the picture is perfect.

Unfortunately, the leaves don't remain on the trees, so we have lots of work to get ready for the long, cold winter months ahead. I absolutely love the 4 seasons that we experience so clearly here in NE. Each one makes me appreciate the next season even more!

Autumn mornings may start out a bit nippy, after an overnight frost, but the warm sun is welcomed. As Winter approaches the temperatures start to drop, the days grow shorter, and our focus gradually shifts to working on indoor projects.

Now that our 'Operation Buddy' has ended with Doug's safe return home from Afghanistan, we're preparing to begin packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. As always, our home team enjoys time for food, fun and fellowship but we chose to take a night off from our study to do this missions work.

We strive to remain In Line With The Word,
Sally and friends

Birthday Surprise

This posting was originally a bit different but I received permission to include the great photo below. Thanks Judy for your comment because you helped us keep the pressure on to get this into our posting.

Melinda celebrates her birthday later this week, so we decided to have a Surprise Party for her but with a little curve ball thrown in for fun. Our regular Tuesday night home team get together started a little earlier than usual, after just a brief half hour of fellowship. We enjoyed discussion of prayer requests and praise reports, opened in prayer and then we were into our study of the Church of Ephesus in Revelation!

Melinda might have thought that we'd forgotten her birthday, or just decided not to do anything at all but at about 8:15 a very yummy Birthday cake was delivered by a tall, dark and handsome guest from the Cat in the Hat and his partner as a surprise for Melinda.



Happy Birthday Melinda! We all love you !

Your Friends In Line With The Word team!

It's Shoe Box Time!

It's Shoe Box time! It's my favorite and busiest time of the year but I wouldn't change a thing about it. Since 2001, LAOG has participated in Operation Christmas Child (OCC) developed and organized by Samaritans Purse. It's a simple 'shoe box' ministry. People fill shoe boxes with school supplies,books, personal hygiene supplies, toys and clothing and Samaritans Purse sends them to children in 100 nations around the world. Since 1993 when this project started, 61 million shoe boxes have been delivered to children around the world.

Come along for the ride as we begin our 2009 Shoe Box story....

Since I have never been able to back up my lawn-mower with a trailer on the back, I am grateful that my husband Charlie did the driving and backing up and I simply acted as traffic cop.


The Rockport Company again donated the shoe boxes and were ready for us. So I didn't have to wait very long before the cases of shoe boxes started to fill up the truck and trailer.

Before you know it, we were loaded up with 30 cases of shoe boxes.

Getting the shoe boxes in cases makes it so easy to load, unload, to bring into church for setting up. We'll be sure to keep the cases and fill them with our donated shoe boxes to get them to our drop off center. We've learned lots about this process over the years and are so very grateful.
Having the shoe boxes donated has made a world of difference in a whole host of ways. I can't even imagine what it might be like if we had to go back in time with everyone having to come up with their own shoe boxes.

After filling up and saying our 'Thank You and good-bye', we headed back to church on a picture perfect fall day here in New England. How beautiful a day and how good our God is to us.

After everyone helped unloading the trailer and things quieted down, I began to get our display set for for our OCC launch this coming Sunday morning when I am privileged to speak at both services.

Check it out! Four cases of shoe boxes , stacked and ready for people to grab on their way out of church.



This shoe box filled for a little girl , somewhere on the other side of the world, will be delivered with the gospel message of how Jesus loves her and the Salvation message!

Watch for some additional postings about Operation Christmas Child over the next few weeks. Our goal this year is to fill and deliver 400 boxes! I'll be sure to let you see what our Dedication Sunday looks like on Nov. 8 and the organized chaos that follows after service when we open and check boxes, and prepare them for shipping!

Striving to walk 'In line with The Word',
Sally

Fond Memories Made

In so many ways , it's been a typical busy Summer! But now, we are back on our normal schedule. We decided to gather the 'In Line With The Word' home team for some food, fun and fellowship to mark the end of the Summer and to transition into our new Fall studies!

Dutch served as official 'greeter' and he did a great job!

Kim's mom Doris became an official member of our team. We are delighted and know that we'll benefit greatly from her wisdom. She'll be with us for a few weeks until she flies away to Florida for the Winter. We'll save her seat until she returns next Spring. She's a delight and she didn't even mind all of the noise.

Pastor Harv and Jean joined us as our very special guests. Pastor Harv is our adviser and we were delighted to share our evening with them.

We all enjoyed a great meal but we still had a very special job to do....

Since we had more buddy boxes to fill, most likely our last batch sent over to Doug in Afghanistan, we had notes to write and sign. We put cards and a photo of our team in each box shipped.

We had lots of fun and everyone helped.

Jay does his best work helping while sitting on the sideline and cheering everyone on.

We had lots to pack !

Check out Laurie and Brian's great teamwork.

When done, we had 6 more boxes, just waiting for our team photo to be added and then off to the Post Office for the start of their journey to Afghanistan!

The guys managed to get away to check out the Tivo of Monday Night Football. It was a Patriot's win after all.

Happy Birthday Doris!

D.J. even took a break from doing his homework and joined us for a while. All in all, it was a delightful evening. Next week , we begin a two week audio theater presentation entitled

'Rescued' by John Bevere!

Until the next time, we strive to live our lives In Line With The Word,
Sally

Girl's Night

It wasn't planned that way but it ended up being a 'girl's night'. Jay was off on a Missions trip to PA. So sorry but he was way too busy to take any pictures for the blog. Mike was sick at home and Brian was working late, so it turned out to be a girls night and we made the most of it by packing about 10 Operation Buddy boxes to ship off to Afghanistan!This project has sparked the interest and support of people outside of our team. The local YMCA, where my husband Charlie is a member, allowed us to post notices regarding our project and to put out a collection bin. Members of the YMCA were so very generous and donated lots and lots of supplies for our boxes. Mike's boss and his boss's wife made a cash donation for supplies. We have been moved and we are grateful !

After packing the boxes and loading them into Kim's car, we gathered in the living room and simply shared , prayed and cried out to God together. It was not our usual team study. We simply followed the Lord's urging to lay down our burdens . We serve a faithful and loving God.

Walking In Line With the Word,
Sally