Thanks Steve!

Though this morning started out rather routine, it quickly took an unexpected turn! But this change of events taught us an important lesson from our blessing. You see, this morning our blessing was a truck driver named Steve! Let me start at the beginning...

It's always exciting when we get a new shipment of books in, and this morning was no exception! Our 11th printing of Good and Evil came rolling up the long, gravel driveway bright and early today. The temperature was already 90 degrees and climbing. We pulled the skidsteer up and opened the back of the shipping container, but we could hardly believe our eyes! Instead of finding 16 pallets of books ready to be unloaded with the skidsteer, we found 20,000 books packed in individual cases, waiting to be unloaded by hand!

Somehow the freight company had made an error when they loaded the books into the rail car. But it was too late to do anything about it now! Thea, Emily and Mike gathered up all of our pallets and began loading each case (there were about 1,000 of them, each weighing approximately 50 pounds) onto the pallets. Debi went down the street and asked Caleb to come help us. Once loaded, each pallet was then moved to our warehouse where it was shrink-wrapped and stacked. It was stifling hot in the shipping container, and everyone involved was soon drenched in sweat.

This is where Steve comes into my story. Now, we have large semis that make deliveries to No Greater Joy all the time. And let's just say that while some drivers are pleasant, others... not so much! 🙂 But Steve was different. He wasn't irritated that he was being delayed.He wasn't unhappy that we didn't have a stack of pallets ready and waiting. He wasn't even upset at all. Instead, Steve was up in that shipping container the whole time helping us unload the books, with a smile on his face!

Mike, Caleb, Steve and Thea

We insisted that he stop for a water break, and we got a chance to talk to him for a bit. It was then that we found out that he had brought his own truck to this delivery, and he told us that he was excited to be able to deliver the books to our ministry to help with the Lord's work! When we thanked him for going above and beyond, he just smiled and told us that he was happy to help! Mike gave him a short tour of No Greater Joy, and also gave him two Good and Evil books, as well as some coloring books for his daughter.

What should have taken a half-hour to do with a skidsteer was finally completed after two hours with six people laboring in the heat! But the person who was inconvenienced the most was the most amiable, hard worker there! Thanks for reminding us that though we can't always control our circumstances, we CAN control our response to them. Thank you for being our blessing Steve!