Tom, Tierra, Seth and Greg

The end of a season, the harvest remains

Many stories walk through the processing center every day during the Operation Christmas Child season. Here are a few of them.

James Outland has lived in the United States for six years. He's orginally from Liberia. Outland said working at OCC is awesome. "And I say that becuase it's a godly atmosphere. It's not what you find in a normal atmosphere. I meet new people every day. Well some of them are not that exciting, but the vast majority of the time you find someone who is touched by what you do and whose heart is warm and inspires you to do more. Most importantly, I am a person of purpose. I like to be defined by my purpose and I like it here because I know that whatever I do here is contributing to the wellbeing of somebody somewhere else in the world. Some child’s life is going to be touched, that family is gonig to be touched. God is going to get the glory so, that keeps me going."

Greg Ainslie, 32, sits in the largest and loudest break room in all of Charlotte eating an Entenmann's strawberry cheese danish. "I figured it out, these things are rehydrated Poptarts." Ainslie can be caught eating one at least twice a day. "I love this place," he leaned into the recorder and emphasized his words. "I luuuve this place. I was next door signing up for unemployment and I dropped in here to volunteer and got a job. And I just see it as God saying "Nut uh, I'm going to take care of you, everything is OK, you don't need to worry."

Seth Brewer walked up to Ainslie's table, sat down and opened his Chic-Fila sandwhich. "A good son would clean his father's gutters," he said jokingly. "Dude, whatever," Ainslie jokes back, explaining his father recently broke his arm cleaning the gutters. Brewer, a first-time associate staff, said he feels guilty at times working here. "I feel I'm getting paid to go to church. It's really a win win win win situation. It makes you that much more aware of your blessings and how we are blessed to be a blessing ... not only might this be the only gift they receive, but the only thing new they receive. When I get to do a presort and pray over the boxes, it's just emotional. The whole process is hard to put into words." Brewer left a bit early one night, and said he wrestled with doing so. "The selfishness of going to a Christmas party or ... saving lives," he said, hand-motioning a balancing scale. Working at the warehouse has been a mountaintop experience, he said.

Felton Kamanda, just moved to Charlotte from Sierra Leone three months ago. He and his father are working at the OCC warehouse. The 20-year-old serves as a back-up. Some days he gets work. Because he has no personal transportation, the days he doesn't work, he'll sit in the break room and talk to people waiting for his father's 7-hour shift to end. The job is his first in the states."This place is a nice place, it's a godly place, a Christian place, it's lovely," Kamanda said. "Glory be to God because it's a blessing to me." Kamanda pretended for a moment to be a child in his home country receiving a shoe box. "I would (be) very happy and excited for that box," he said. "I want to know what is in that box for me. I would be very anxious to open it. I would be so glad and thankful to God."

Tierra Mendez has been an associate staff for five years. The processing center isn't new to her. She started as a volunteer when she was "real young."It's just a blessing to come back and serve God at the same time," she said in the midst of the pink and yellow lines screaming at the top of their lungs. "Just the cause … that kids get to know our God, you know what I mean, in countries where their beliefs are totally different. But just a little gift that can open a window so God can really change their lives, that's why I"m here. I don't have to be in other countries, I can be right here and serve.

Dianna Hardesty, from Austin, Texas, said working at the processing center means “to be a servant of the Lord and to do his will, to touch little children. My absolute passion in life is children, and to know that their lives are going to be transformed through their little gift of love.” Hardesty travels 2,400 miles and has been cleaning the dining room area, where one might find her digging for plastic bottles or soda cans to place in the appropriate recycling containers. Ask her position, and she’ll say she’s a servant of the Most High God. In 2006, she was a cartonizer, but this year her application was misplaced, but she told the staff to give her any position open. “What an honor to serve all the saints out here, this is the best position out here, this is the best job on the planet.”

Ana Smith, a former missionary to Spain, had worked previously on this project through a temp agency in the mailroom. This year she’s happy to be out on the floor with the volunteers. “It's been a huge blessing. I think God is calling me back and this is giving me a little taste of it, almost romancing me back into full-time ministry. I'm also very drawn to anything that has to do with children.” Smith had an interaction with a volunteer that sticks in her mind. “Last week I had a volunteer that kept looking at me. It was an older man maybe about 50s or 60s, and I said, ‘What? what is it.’ And he said, ‘Is that your real name Ana Banana? And I said, ‘Well everybody calls me that and I just put it on my name tag because I needed something today.’ He said, ‘You just keep smiling, I just can't get over it, no matter what anybody says to you or does you just keep smiling.’ And that really, that was a highlight. I needed that. The Lord always seems to have a word for us at some point or another.”

Tom Yokeley has been volunteering at OCC for years. In the middle of making cartons, he told the story of his 13-year-old Natalie, who died at the end of November from cancer. Yokeley talked about how he quit his job to be with her night and day in the hospital. He talked of his 16-year-old son, who has a reputation in his public high school as the Bible boy, and who loved his sister dearly. Toward the end of Natalie's life, she was in wheelchair. "I wish I could reel her in here. She would love this. Every time I write Girl 10-14, I think of her ─I think about what a good life she had for those years and I think about these kids and just how excited they'll be to get a shoebox, it makes their year." Tom's wife works at the Billy Graham Evangelical Association, and he said that's been a good support for them. He took out two laminated pictures, showing off Natalie’s cute face, brown hair and braces. But still, the pain still lingers, and Tom eagerly awaits the next life. "I don't know what people do without God in their lives, especially in situations like this. I'll get to heaven, a place we all yearn for, and ask her why she left me so soon. And she'll say, 'Dad it's so simple,' just like she always used to."

For this writer, being a part of OCC weeks and days before I make some serious promises to my about-to-be husband, has been a way of strengthening the cement right before a foundation will be built. In many ways I have felt closer to God, a mountain-like experience like Brewer said. But for me, I've been learning Colossians 3:23 all over again: recognizing that the work of Lord can involve mundane tasks. It's just as important for the toilets to be cleaned and the cartons to be taped as it is for the prayers to be said and conversations to be had with the volunteers. All of these things are part of the harvest work ─ each necessary for God being glorified. Jesus once told his disciples he wasn't hungry and that his food was to do the will of God. I have been reminded that whatever is next (especially for those of us in need of employment), it has the potential to be a morsel of God's will - regardless the task. Tom's story had my heart aching and my eyes watering. Even in the midst of such strife, he's eating the right food and the energy he gets from that allows him to maintain his post as a reaper. The faith I've seen in so many, the devotions I've heard, the energy and excitement, the encouragement on rough days ... this is all for the Glory of the One who came to seek and save the lost. May we continue to do likewise. Happy Birthday Jesus.

OCC looks like this

the vows

I betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, in mercy and faithfulness. I will encourage you to appreciate deeper depths, higher heights, and wider widths of Christ's love. I give you my honesty and kindness, and I vow to seek the kingdom of God first above all else. I will love you in and through all things. Our love will not be defined by the world, but by Truth, and in that truth, together we will abide. Together we will plant, water, wait, and harvest ... and together we will bear fruit. I set you, this day, as a seal upon my heart to have and to hold, in want and in plenty, in hunger and in satisfaction, in sickness and in health, to love as an example of Christ and the church, until death brings us face to face with our King.