Frank and I took the sewing machine Ginnie gave CAMT to take to our Mexican friends at Faith Ministry in January to an excellent repairman in Pottstown. He said it’s a good machine (a Viking) and it looks like it’s in good shape. It hardly appears to have been used. Of course, it will cost $60 to check it out—more if it needs any actual repairs. Probably not unreasonable, but—CAMT’s account at the church has its usual balance of about $80 and we owe Faith Ministry a $250 registration fee for our trip in January.
To digress briefly, there is one person (we think it’s one person) who makes anonymous donations of about $20 in one of the pew envelopes most Sundays. While we do get several hundred dollars from the church budget each year, our expenses have expanded as our work has expanded, and we need more (a matter being addressed by the church at this time). Last year these pew envelope offerings totaled more than $600! The bottom line—our bottom line always seems to be enough to pay what we owe such as registration for mission trips, a supplement for the WV food budget and scholarships for those going on the trips. As I learned long ago, when there is legitimate need and you trust God to provide, He does—but He does cut it awfully close sometimes. We’re never “comfortable” but we always have enough.
Back to the sewing machine. Frank and I just looked at each other when the repairman asked if we had the cord. Ginnie was so thorough that I doubt she forgot to give it to us, but there’s no way to store it in the case, so while we wait for an e-mail response from her, I guess we’ll look through the boxes of materials she gave us.
If you remember, her contributions literally filled our Dodge Grand Caravan to the extent that the only space not taken up with boxes and tubs are the two front seats. Since there’s no place at church to store everything (we barely have room for all the people sometimes—hence the plans for a major building program.) we’ve decided to just store everything in our one-car garage which means the car will have to sit in the driveway. It will be inconvenient, and I will probably complain about having to get into a cold car until we leave in January just to make sure everyone knows what a sacrifice I’m making, BUT IT’S OK!
Today we’ll move all the boxes and tubs into the garage and begin our search. Do we have bets on how many boxes/tubs we’ll search before finding it? I’ll let you know.
Friday, October 07, 2005
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Boxes, Boxes and More Boxes of Crafts
First, thanks for the suggestions offered in Comments at the end of recent entries. Appreciate it!
Barbara, Frank and I (Joyce) drove to Bethlehem (that’s PA) 9/26 to have lunch with Joan whose slides led to Covenant’s becoming “hooked” on mission trips. We then proceeded to her friend Ginnie’s home to gather the craft materials and a small sewing machine she wanted to donate to CAMT (Covenant’s Adult Mission Team).
Ginnie has a HUGE collection of odds and ends of things which can be cut, folded, glued, wrapped, threaded, painted, sewn, decorated—you name it—to make all kinds of interesting items you didn’t know you’d like (or even knew existed) until you saw them.
Ginnie, a retired art teacher, is a conservationist unlike anyone we’ve ever seen. Plastic rings that hold soda cans in six packs can be cut and woven together to make hammocks that will support a person—or can be suspended in a room to hold household items. Felt covers a square of cardboard cut from the side of a cereal box and becomes the playing board for felt tic tack toe pieces. Beads are threaded on colorful pipe cleaners which are then bent to make the shape of a candy cane. The list goes on—and on—and on—and on… When she threw multiple rolls of ribbon into one of our boxes, Barbara asked what we could use them for. Her reply? “You won’t know until you have them.” Talk about being open to new possibilities!
It took two hours of very efficient, rapid-fire mini lessons (or, sometimes, just a quick flick of the materials in her hands to suggest what can be done with them) to introduce us to the van-load of boxes of materials she gave us. Everything was well organized and there were patterns for many projects.
Ginnie looks at everything differently from most of us. I doubt she’s ever said, “That old thing!” More like, “I can use that to make ______.” The Bible tells us not to put new wine in old wineskins. Ginnie’s the kind of person who wouldn’t throw out the old wineskins just because they were no longer fit to hold wine. She’d find a creative use for them—like filling them with flowers and hanging them on her door to bring a smile to someone’s weary face.
Later in the week, a new attender at Covenant was in our neighborhood and dropped off two tubs of quilting materials plus a box of silk ties and two boxes of quilting patterns. We haven’t unloaded Ginnie’s donations because we don’t know where to put them. Now we don’t know what to do with the newest gifts which are sitting in our dining room. They won’t fit in the van which is now filled except for the two front seats. Guess we’ll start to fill up our car.
Next month’s meeting will be a Sorting Party at which we’ll attempt to develop some kind of organization of projects and materials and repack everything into tubs and boxes for the trip southwest.
Next Post: after our CAMT Sorting Party Oct. 25.
Barbara, Frank and I (Joyce) drove to Bethlehem (that’s PA) 9/26 to have lunch with Joan whose slides led to Covenant’s becoming “hooked” on mission trips. We then proceeded to her friend Ginnie’s home to gather the craft materials and a small sewing machine she wanted to donate to CAMT (Covenant’s Adult Mission Team).
Ginnie has a HUGE collection of odds and ends of things which can be cut, folded, glued, wrapped, threaded, painted, sewn, decorated—you name it—to make all kinds of interesting items you didn’t know you’d like (or even knew existed) until you saw them.
Ginnie, a retired art teacher, is a conservationist unlike anyone we’ve ever seen. Plastic rings that hold soda cans in six packs can be cut and woven together to make hammocks that will support a person—or can be suspended in a room to hold household items. Felt covers a square of cardboard cut from the side of a cereal box and becomes the playing board for felt tic tack toe pieces. Beads are threaded on colorful pipe cleaners which are then bent to make the shape of a candy cane. The list goes on—and on—and on—and on… When she threw multiple rolls of ribbon into one of our boxes, Barbara asked what we could use them for. Her reply? “You won’t know until you have them.” Talk about being open to new possibilities!
It took two hours of very efficient, rapid-fire mini lessons (or, sometimes, just a quick flick of the materials in her hands to suggest what can be done with them) to introduce us to the van-load of boxes of materials she gave us. Everything was well organized and there were patterns for many projects.
Ginnie looks at everything differently from most of us. I doubt she’s ever said, “That old thing!” More like, “I can use that to make ______.” The Bible tells us not to put new wine in old wineskins. Ginnie’s the kind of person who wouldn’t throw out the old wineskins just because they were no longer fit to hold wine. She’d find a creative use for them—like filling them with flowers and hanging them on her door to bring a smile to someone’s weary face.
Later in the week, a new attender at Covenant was in our neighborhood and dropped off two tubs of quilting materials plus a box of silk ties and two boxes of quilting patterns. We haven’t unloaded Ginnie’s donations because we don’t know where to put them. Now we don’t know what to do with the newest gifts which are sitting in our dining room. They won’t fit in the van which is now filled except for the two front seats. Guess we’ll start to fill up our car.
Next month’s meeting will be a Sorting Party at which we’ll attempt to develop some kind of organization of projects and materials and repack everything into tubs and boxes for the trip southwest.
Next Post: after our CAMT Sorting Party Oct. 25.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
