God Answers Quickly

A quiet Friday afternoon after a very busy distribution week is interrupted by a phone call from our Disaster Relief Director, Mike Hoffman, for another semi-load of Salvation Army boxes needed for the storm-soaked South to be trucked out on Tuesday morning. We just emptied our shelves of the disaster relief boxes on Monday and trucked them to Florida. With our monthly distribution, serving 300+ local agencies with food, we haven't had the opportunity to start packing more DR boxes until today. Between lack of supplies to fill the boxes and volunteers to package them, the task of getting 750+ boxes together by Monday night is daunting non the less. But not for our Great God!

Brainstorms start among our leadership team – we are closed on Saturdays and Sundays and have a small, dedicated group of moms coming on Monday for a few hours, but the need is greater. We can reach out to some of our regular groups via email? No, let's just call them so we know for sure. Late on a Friday, no one is answering our phone call. We can do a mass email or post it on Facebook? No, we may get a flood of volunteers and what we really need is 20 hard-working people willing to spend the day (Monday) to get these boxes done.

Then, late Friday afternoon in our front door walks our answer - Peoria Officer Dotson, Public Information Officer, Christy Williams, City of Peoria Administrative Specialist, and a police cadet. Little did we or they know that God was using them to fill a need we were eagerly trying to solve on our own. After a swirl of conversation and a few phone calls, these 2 ladies mobilized the Peoria Police and Peoria Fire Departments to pack disaster relief boxes. And true to their word and God's will, MFB was blessed to have plenty of volunteers all day Monday to not only finish the 768 disaster relief boxes, but to get a start on replenishing disaster relief inventory and Tender Mercies meals to go into them. The semi-truck loaded with disaster relief supplies left on Monday afternoon for N. Carolina (1 day ahead of schedule).

We earnestly thank God and our City of Peoria leaders for the mobilization of volunteers and making it evident that His desire is to make our paths straight when we let His light shine.