Full Steam Ahead

If you think things settled down after Russell’s busy weekend, you’ve got another thing coming! Or is it, “you’ve got another think coming?” Whatever the phrase is, life for everyone with Sowers4Pastors has been full steam ahead. Or is it “full speed ahead?” Sometimes English is hard.

The first of five back-to-back teams is arriving this Saturday. That means all of the backpacks have to be sorted and backpacks for designated children need to be set aside. This is why Sowers4Pastors relies on clearly marked boxes - there simply isn't enough time to open ALL of the boxes of backpacks before starting the distribution. Russell has some of his crew on this, including Kelsea, and Kirstin. Sadly, Abby’s presence as a volunteer toy-tester did not prove to be beneficial, so she will need to find other volunteer opportunities. If Nana would like to bake cookies, Abby would probably make a fine quality assurance expert.

Last week, Russell got the shoes for the children organized. Then more shoes arrived on the Maryland container. He rotated the inventory to avoid ending up with shoes that sit in storage for years on end.

The work on the coffee farm is still going strong. Currently, they are chopping weeds. The fertilizer will be applied soon. Russell will continue to manage the crew when he’s out with the teams to be sure that he’s adequately staffed and that they have plenty of work to do.

The trucks for the teams are being assessed for maintenance needs and washed. With the work on the coffee farm, at least one truck will need to stay behind for the harvest. But they also need enough trucks to take 3000 backpacks out to the sites. They will be visiting 35 locations in five weeks. There will be several days when the teams will deliver to multiple schools.

Oh, and about those schools... Russell makes sure that schools/churches are notified of their delivery dates to make sure the kids are there to receive their backpacks.

Because the fun never stops, Kelsea is currently sorting through piles of receipts for tax purposes. Russell is overseeing that process. 

Don’t forget that backpack delivery time is also a time to register new kids in the program. This calls for translators who are typically graduates of a local bilingual school. Russell is the one organizing that, as well. While Sowers4Pastors ministry is never all about one person, Trish said it well when she said, “Russell is organizing it all and he knows who to call. He’s 31-yrs-old and there’s no way we could replace him with just one person."

- posted by Christi