Tuesday 12/18/12 The Story

Dear Father in Heaven.  Thanks again for waking us this day, and thanks for watching over us.  Please be with Sterling as he suffers the loss of his wife.  We know, Jesus, she is with You.  Thanks for all Your work with us in the food pantry.  Thanks for watching over our families and friends.  In Jesus' Name, I pray.  Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters.  Our friend Luella Funck has gone home to be with Jesus.  Please pray for her husband Sterling and their family.  Sterling and Luella were part of our flock at the Bridges and they both loved the Lord Jesus, and of course Sterling still does.  I am running behind somewhat and I want to bring you up to date on our food pantry and how things went on Saturday at our distribution.  First this update.  Today, Tuesday, I had both of my knees injected with Syndisc to help get me through until I can get time to  have at least my right one replaced.  We need your  prayers to keep us going through Christmas.  Please keep praying for Ruby, who had a bad fall.  Let me get to our daily message.

Matthew 25:35 - "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in."  (NIV)

Yes, I used this scripture last week, but it is the best when telling you about our food pantry.  Let me go back to December 1st when a crew, and I mean a crew of people came to our food pantry and packed food for 80 families.  It was a work of art as these folks would get food off the shelves and pack it into bags.  While 80 families you might think 80 bags, but the fact is we packed out 5 bags for each family.  That is 400 bags of food.  Then it was stacked, some on tables, on shelves, and some on the floor.  You heard me tell of the water pipe breaking and how the water did  not hit one bag of food.  GOD IS GOOD, PRAISE THE LORD!

Dolores got the job of calling families, lining them up to come in on the 15th for food.  This takes days and days and days of calls.  We get our family names for those needing food from those who have come in before and called to come in.  We also call on several school districts and their counselors supply us with names of families who are requesting help.  Also Cumberland County Children and Youth send us family names.  All families were contacted first by those sending names so to get permission for us to contact them. Dolores called over 80 families and she confirmed over 70 that would be coming in on our distribution day, December 15th.  Now let's get to Distribution Day.

Saturday, December 15th, finds Dolores and me rising at 4:00 AM so as to take care of our animals and get ready for this big day.  At 7:30 AM our movers and shakers, Grant and Wanda, arrived to help get the day started.  After a short prayer we made a few starter plans and then things started to move out.  Tables were pulled outside and set up, pies were pulled from a freezer in our upper garages and brought down.  It was a beautiful, but cold morning, and we were setting up outside.  Soon after four people came from Jonestown, PA, about 50 miles away.  Two years ago the one couple had a fire in their home and they rented a place from our son, who has Lehman's Property Management.  He told us they needed some help and we stocked their kitchen with food.  They came to "give back".  More and more people came to help, food carts were put outside, dog food was packed up and set out for those having dogs.  Potatoes were pulled out and some needed bagged.  At 8:50 AM we all stopped and after praying and talking about all those who were killed the day before, all those babies, we went back to work for the Lord.  People got their assignments.  We had three prayer warriors on the driveway, Tim Beitzel, Ruby Mayeski, and Wanda Crockett.  Others were assigned to other jobs, such as head loader, and loaders.  Grant worked the cars coming in, dressed in his elf suit.  Cars were lined up side by side, with four cars moving ahead at a time.  Drivers went inside to sign in, and their ID was checked.  Then they came out with a loading slip and the fun began.  A turkey, five bags of food, and five pounds of potatoes were loaded into the cars for the folks.  In the meantime, the ones coming for the food were sent down a line, two packs of hamburger rolls, one pie, and all the goodies they wanted.  Flour, salad mix, and even extra cereal was put into the bags.  Cars lined up, and the line was moving.  What a day!  About mid-morning, our dear friend and prayer warrior, Ruby, had a bad fall on the driveway, two nurses attended to her.  These ladies, Helen and Robin, were here helping to load cars.  She was driven home by Robin and daughter Danelle picked up Robin and brought her back.  It was really a great day.  One person was upset when they tried to pick up food for someone who told us they did n ot need the food and that person was turned away.  It was a beautiful and wonderful day.  Every pie, every loaf of bread, all went out, three of our freezers were empty.  We had enough turkeys to go around with the help of all of you who donated turkeys or dollars to purchase them.  I even bought some extras and the leftovers were put into one freezer.  The other freezers were left open to defrost.  Now I must go on here just a tad.

In the meantime, food had been coming in, it was stacked in baskets and in boxes to be sorted and shelved after the distribution day.  Monday I received a call to get bread from the food store that another ministry could not use.  Today, Tuesday, I picked up that load of bread.  Our movers and shakers once again showed up.  I was with Grant and Wanda in the morning for awhile and we talked about how we were going to lay out the food pantry.  About 11:00 AM I had to leave to get my knees injected.  I returned to find the work done and things back in place and all the boxes broken down and placed at the curb for Wednesday morning pickup.

We have two places to go and pick up more food.  The museum that fills the antique truck notified us today that the truck was full again.  Grant and I just unloaded it on Monday, just the day before.

Our shelves are loaded.  We now have the shelves back to almost normal, but much, much more than last year at this time.  Thanks for all who helped to purchase food, all who helped pack food, all who sent in food, all who filled carts at churches and the Auto Museum at Hershey, PA.  All who came to load the cars and pray over those coming in.  Special thanks to New Hope Ministries Food Pantry, Mechanicsburg, PA. and Newport Assembly of God Food Pantry, Newport, PA. for sharing with our small food pantry as we team together to help feed the hungry according to the word of our Lord Jesus.  One of the most special things that happen at the Carry The Light Ministries is that everyone who comes for food, EVERYONE, gets prayed for and over.  This is not just on this one day, it is each time.  On Distribution Day, we pray in the driveway so to keep the line moving.

The only other trouble we had this year was that Santa's big bus went down again for repairs.  This time I think we will need to either salvage it or maybe replace the engine with a used one.  It is great for when we go out to do Santa and load with food, we can do it all at once.  Beside that the bus is a witness to the Lord on the road.

Now as we thank everyone, we will indeed give TOP HONORS AND ALL THE GLORY TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, FOR WITHOUT HIM WE WOULD HAVE NOTHING.

Dear Father in Heaven ... Thanks for the great blessings.  All honor and glory to You, through Your Son Jesus, I give these thanks.  Amen.

Now go forth and share your blessings, for INDEED, when you share them in faith, you will be blessed over and over again.  So often when I walk into the food pantry I will say, "God is good all the time."  Others in the pantry will say, "All the time, God is good."

Love ya, Pastor Dan.