Pack it 9 and a half months pregnant

The first packing guidelines from Love Packages’ founder Steve Schmidt are, “Fill the boxes nine and a half months pregnant.” In other words, overfill the boxes. A waist high Gaylord Box holds the fillers such as Our Daily Bread and The Upper Room. During our last visit Schmidt assigned Hubby and I to a corner with pallets of factory sealed boxes of Children’s Bibles and pallets of thin tall New Testaments of the same width and length. “Open the boxes, fill the space beside the stacks of Bibles and beside the rows of Bibles with New Testaments then put two layers of New Testaments on top of each of the four stacks of Bibles. Tape and put it on that pallet,” Schmidt said. At home, Hubby prepares boxes for shipping. He never packs a box with a bulging top. That skews measurements and postage fees. At LP, every box bulges a bit so Hubby packed as instructed. The packages will get pressed down during shipment. Schmidt does not want to pay for shipping air. He has spent five decades shipping literature and Bibles to people with limited funds and resources. The need to reach people in other countries for Christ dictates⁹ what is packed. Busy work and craft projects from Sunday School curriculums do not pass the muster for shipment. Cardboard spacers go in the trash.Decisions begin during the sorting process. Only a select few novels pass the muster. The staff sorts literature into Gaylord Boxes filled according to category: Bibles, reference materials and popular or classic Christian writers, DVDs, Sunday School material. I always thought the Chronological Bible we contributed would go with Bibles. This time I learned, “We put those in the literature boxes because it would be difficult for readers to find the books of the Bible using the chronological order.” I still will collect them but realize upfront that they go in with popular authors and not the Bibles. This time Schmidt assigned me to pack reference materials where the donated books from pastor’s libraries after their retirement or passing go along with dictionaries and atlases. Several months ago we found a thrift store with dozens of hardback dictionaries in great condition. I had asked Schmidt if Love Packages could use that many. “We can put them in the reference materials,” Schmidt answered.The next time we visited the store, we began clearing the shelves. We stopped filling boxes after we had 250 dictionaries. We dropped them off at Love Packages on our way home this past winter. During this visit to LP I packed some of those dictionaries along with concordances, Greek New Testaments, commentaries, Bible atlases and time charts. “Those are the ones we brought,” Hubby observed. After visiting we know the types of books and materials that Love Packages ships. We also have seen the rejected books that go into a Gaylord Box for a buyer with an outlet for the books.This visit Schmidt had planned to pack a shipping container until he learned that the company did not have one. It still did have one when he called hours later hoping one had arrived. It had not. He explained that not being able to pack and ship meant the container would not meet the train. Therefore it would miss the ship leaving for the designated port. All the paperwork and details would have to be re-worked. Now we know that between visits and collecting literature, we can pray specifically for containers to come and leave on time with safe journeys over the rails and oceans.We may not be able to go and spread the Word, but we sure have found ways to support those who do.