Medicine Bow Peak

As you all can tell by my lack of blogging (thanks Mom for reminding me), I have been busy. Taking 21 credit hours (I am crazy) and working 40 hours a week (I love my job) is going really well; it's the fact that I squeeze in hiking, running, exploring, and other adventures into every other waking moment of my day that leaves me no time to blog.

Since I have been so busy, I have tons of updates! I have been working on an article for Denver Christian Family Magazine, which will be published in October. I interviewed a family and pretty much stalked them with my camera as they chose things for their shoe box. I will have to copy my article to here once it is published. I have also been working on getting media about OCC published anywhere possible. That is going fairly well, but I know that it will only get better as we get closer to Christmas. Oh, yes, and I have been working on the ridiculous task of organizing these things we call P&A forms. They are the forms each drop off center is required to fill out if they want to work with our organization.... I have been trying my best to complete the missing information, and it took me a full day just to organize them all into a binder!

I love my job though, I really do. It's so encouraging to hear how wide-spread Operation Christmas Child really is. Hannah and I went camping and hiking at Medicine Bow Peak, in Wyoming a couple weekends ago. After a wonderful night of camping, and quite an adventure cooking our breakfast.. well let's just say I accidentally knocked water over and put out our fire... we drove up to where we could start out climb up the peak. We pulled up the car and as we were getting out we noticed that the van next to us had an Operation Christmas Child sticker on it! We started talking to the man driving the van and as fate would have it, or as God would have it really, his wife was an area team volunteer, and both Hannah and I had previously talked with her on the phone. We were encouraged as we started our hike up the mountain, and we ended up running into another group of people who all packed shoe boxes every year! Hannah and I agreed that it is trully wonderful to hear of how many people participate year after year, and how united we are in the project.

We huffed and puffed our way up the mountain, stopping every 100 ft. or so to catch our breath. The scenery was obviously breath taking, and every step I took I realized that I was climbing higher than I had ever been before. Reaching the top was quite a challenge; we actually had to climb up these huge rocks, sometimes getting on our hands and knees so we wouldn't fall. We made it to the very top and realized what a feat it was to climb 12,013 feet.
As we were sitting on the highest rock we could find and eating our lunch, we ran into another couple of people who knew all about the project. It was as if everywhere we turned we were meeting people who were familiar with Operation Christmas Child. We enjoyed sliding down part of the mountain that was covered with snow, and then we continued our 5 mile journey down the mountain. I was really tired at the end, probably due to the extreme elevation change. I don't know how people climb Mt. Everest... hmm maybe I can do that someday. Once we made it to the car, and got our shoes off and jackets back on, it started pouring down rain; perfect end to a great climb.

All this to say, that Operation Christmas Child is huge. It's not even about the number of boxes I pack per year, or the number of boxes you pack per year. It's all about ALL of us coming together and packing 8.2 million shoe boxes. Yes, that is 8.2 million children who will have a smile on their face this Christmas.

: ) Ten weeks until national collection week!