1,000s of Crafts!

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5.... 148, 149, 150! Oh, will we ever get done?"

This is what was going through my head for the last week as we were getting the materials ready for the student's children's programs.

After 3 months of training, the students are going out for a one-month on the job training to different places around the Philippines to practice what they've learned. There will be 20 seminars happening at the same time! And about 12 children's programs will also be going on at the same time with approximately 2,000 kids all together!

We had been working for awhile to try to get the crafts for the children's program printed for a reasonable price.  To print 50,000 crafts was quite an amount and several places offered to do it for us, but it would have been a fortune to do it there! God guided us to another place, which agreed to do it for a cheap price, if we provided the card-stock - which we did.

Last Thursday, they finally got some of the crafts printed and delivered to the church, where we have classes every day. All of them needed to be cut in half and then punched so each page would have 2 holes in it. We had one hole punch and one paper cutter (later we found another one) and 1,000s of crafts to do.

We started with just our family and a couple helpers. Soon others came in and said, "Oh, can I help?" "What can I do?"

Soon we had a whole group gathered around, helping out in whatever way they could. Some of them counted the crafts into groups that could be cut in half by the paper cutter, others counted them into groups that were just right for the hole punch and others divided them into groups of 50, 100, 150 or more, depending on how many we needed.

Julius (PAFCOE student) cutting crafts. He was singing as he worked and inspired us all! :)

Everyone had such a good attitude, too! There was no complaining or grumbling that there were so many crafts and whether we would get done or not. They just pitched in and were glad to do their part in helping along! Praise God for willing hands! I was so inspired by their willingness and cheerfulness in doing a hard task.

Some of the students and helpers hard at work

More preparation

Thanks to God's help and the locals (who helped so willingly), in 3 days, we were all finished! It truly was amazing!

It really is true that "many hands make light work"!