Friendly Friday: rubber band edition

So before I start, I just gotta say, people around here, well, they call things by strange names.  For instance, around here, they're not rubber bands, they're rubber binders.  Huh?  And it's not sledding, it's sliding.  Well, OK, but then how do you differentiate between hurtling down a slick snowy hill on a sled and throwing your body down an inclined plane on the playground?  And seriously, folks, what is with the gray ducks?!  Everyone knows it's supposed to be geese!

Ah, but I love my upper midwest neighbors so I'll forgive their little naming sillinesses.  And in any case, that's not what you want to hear about.

So, yes, time for Friendly Friday!  {insert musical fanfare here}

I found myself with an hour of "dead" time on Wednesday evening, so I asked the Director of Children and Family Ministries at our church if there was anything I could do for her.  Now before you get all jealous of me having an hour of free time, don't.  There were certainly plenty of other things that I could have been doing during that hour, and many I probably should have been doing, but I made the choice help someone else instead of doing any of those other things.

Jan asked me to help with the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  Maybe you've heard of this?  An organization called Samaritan's Purse distributes shoeboxes filled with small toys, toiletries, and treats to children around the world who are living in poverty.  Along with the shoeboxes, volunteers deliver the Good News of salvation in the children's own language.

So you're supposed to pack a shoebox with gifts, put a label on it, saying whether it's for a boy or a girl, and what age it's for, put a check inside the box to help with distribution costs, and put a rubber band around it.  Pretty easy.  But, for some reason, not everyone is able to follow directions, so my job was to go through the boxes and make sure there were no forbidden items, take out the checks (some of which were made out to Samaritan's Purse, and some to our church), make sure the boxes were labeled, and make sure each box had a rubber band (or binder, if you prefer) around it.

There weren't that many boxes.  Maybe 50?  And it was a pretty easy assignment, but it did take Bubby and me most of the hour to get through it.  And that's an hour that Jan was able to spend doing something else.

There's still time if you'd like to pack a shoebox.  Just head over to Samaritan's Purse for all the details.  One option that I think is pretty exciting is that now you can follow your shoebox, so you know where it ends up.  What a great way to teach your children (or, ahem, yourself) about generosity, with a bonus geography lesson thrown in!

How about you?  Did you step out in kindness this week?  Leave a comment to let me know about it.  If you blogged about it, you can link up to Friendly Friday over at O My Family, like I did :)