Lehigh Valley Outreach Depot

God Moment #1:

Our dream became a vision and that vision inspired our church to create a mission. After discovering Mission Central and being awed and inspired by their vision, creation and development and by volunteering and experiencing their practical Christianity we wanted the same for the Lehigh Valley. The economy is bad! Is it possible that a business owner would be willing to donate space for a start-up warehouse? Only by reaching out to them by way of a mass mailing project would we find out. We got in our car, drove through several of many industrial parks located within a close proximity to our church and convenient to the lower income area of our city. Bingo! Our first “God Moment” - Ed Sinko and Gary Wagner, owners of Rustic Exteriors, a company specializing in stone facings for houses, contacted us. They actually read our letter and they responded!

Ed and Gary have graciously donated the use of 5,000 square feet of warehouse space for one year – at no cost! What a blessing these two gentlemen are!

Ed Sinko

Gary Wagner

God Moment #2:

The warehouse space is not perfect but it is very useable, near major highways (for trucking) and has truck access for loading and unloading. The area needed major cleaning and painting. A large group from our church volunteered their time to help with the tasks at hand. Another tenant of the building inquired about what was going on and what were we creating. This tenant has a truck rental and moving business. Business trips find him frequently returning from the mid-west by way of Mission Central with a only a partial load or an empty truck. James offered and has already been able to transport pallets of goods from Mission Central to us. Our God moment occurred when we had to show patience in getting those pallets from James’ area of the warehouse to our depot area. What a blessing that was! We experienced an accidental and unexpected flooding of our entire depot space. The materials on the pallets were spared being damaged by the water due to our having to wait. These pallets contained desperately needed Health Kits, destined to be sent to Haiti. Our job was to verify that the kits had been properly packed. When James’ men brought the pallets to our depot, the space was completely dried out and our verification work could begin. Thank God we had decided to wait for the move!

God Moment #3:

A couple of church members walked in the door and said they wanted to deliver some items for the depot. We were used to such announcements, having received numerous donations over the past few months.

These donations were different! Apparently this couple had been asking themselves what they could do to help our ministry. They opened the morning paper and discovered that Boscov’s was having a clearance sale on many useful items. They went to Boscov’s and selected a variety of items – toaster ovens, coffee makers, vacuums, electric grills, pots & pans, sheets, towels and other items – more than $280 worth of new items!

We were awed by this act of generosity - but not surprised – we find that God is always there renewing our faith in His goodness and His support of our ministry.

Within a half hour after this couple left the depot a mother of 4 walked in to pick up items she had selected last week – a sofa, two chairs and a variety of educational toys for her children. She asked if perhaps we might possibly have some pots and pans she could use. When handed a brand new set of pots and pans, she was visibly touched and very thankful for what we were able to do for her and her children.

God Moment 4: The Blessing of HEAT!

We’re still in the first year of our ministry and resources are limited. We are completely dependent upon donations. The area we were offered had a furnace and oil tank that hadn’t been used for years. The owner had never had a need to use it. We learned that the furnace was inoperable because the exhaust had to be removed to make room for an access ramp.

As winter approached we hoped and prayed we could refurbish the furnace and use it for heat. We soon discovered the cost would be prohibitive. We were led to call in Hannabery HVAC, a local heating company, to get their advice.

Hannabery’s technician came to the depot and, after hearing about our vision and ministry, came up with a creative solution -- bypassing the existing furnace and installing a propane furnace. He was able to convince his management to donate a new 80,000 BTU furnace and he offered to donate his labor at no cost to our ministry.

As we do for every major benefactor, we added a link to Hannabery HVAC on our web site. While posting the link, we learned that Hannabery’s motto is “THE COMPANY THAT CARES”.

God Moment 5: The Bushkill Inn & Resort

For several months we have had to tell dozens of our “guests” that the Lehigh Valley Outreach Depot simply had no beds or dressers available. Our prayers often included pleas for help.

Recently, by way of a friend at Trinity Church, we received notice that the Bushkill Inn & Resort (in the Poconos) needed to get rid of more than 50 rooms of bedroom furniture on a first come, first served basis. We called & were told that we were caller #3. As soon as the first caller took what they wanted, the second caller wanted to take what was left.

We decided to follow up with a second call (right after caller #1 had left) and were told that, because of what we planned to do with it, we could get up to 15 rooms of furniture if we could pick it all up the next day.

On short notice we were able to assemble a team of 8 volunteers, two pickup trucks with trailers, and arranged to rent a 24 foot truck!
Using every cubic foot of available transport we successfully moved a large number of beds, dressers, nightstands, desks, tables, blankets, bedspreads and mattress covers to add to the Depot’s inventory. As we arrived to unload the trucks, there was a “guest” waiting anxiously to take away a bed, a dresser and an end table!

God Moment 6: People blessing People:

Thursday morning we opened our email and found a plea for help. The message read, in part:

“As you may have read in the newspaper one of our students was seriously injured in an automobile accident. The immediate need of the family is they could really use a Lazy Boy recliner for the daughter who was injured in the accident..

She will be coming home this week and will do her rehab at home. She is still using a walker and they do not want her to lie in bed all day. A recliner would be helpful on two levels: one, she could spend part of the day sitting up and two; she can use the arms to help push herself up to use the walker.”

We replied, saying we didn’t know for sure if we had a recliner at the depot but would check. If not, we would send out a special request to get one donated – and would be surprised if we couldn’t come up with a recliner by Saturday.

There were no recliners at the depot so we asked our church office to include a request in the Friday morning e-news. Within two hours we had a response! By Friday evening we had two recliners delivered to the depot and two more were donated Saturday morning!

God loves you, Amanda, and God’s people love you too. Get well quickly!

Amanda

God Moment 7: Again People blessing People:

Recently we had another series of “coincidences” - a snowball effect which can only described as a God Moment.

One of our many volunteers is a realtor. Working full time keeps Debby from volunteering at the Depot, but she’s constantly working as an ambassador for this ministry. Whenever she attends a realtors’ meeting, she lets them know that there’s a place that will gladly receive leftover furniture and household goods.

Debby “popped in” one day to announce that there was a home with a couple of beds available but they’d have to be picked up before week’s end. The moving volunteers asked if they might follow her to the house right away. She agreed and they returned shortly with 2 beds.

A guest had been in earlier that morning and was scheduled to return that afternoon to pick up the little furniture she had chosen. She had asked for 2 beds but we had had none. Now we had them & were able to tell her of her good fortune. She was, of course, pleased and explained, in broken English, that the county agency was coming the next day to see if her home was suitable for her two children. She hadn’t seen her children for two years. Her husband had bashed the face of one of the children and the children had been removed. Now she had hope and shook with excitement!

She had been referred to us by a mental health agency. She went on to say that her mattress was on the floor and she’d like to get it off the floor if possible. We had no box springs and could only offer a frame, slats and a board. Lo and behold, two volunteers arrived with a complete full sized bed. It was suggested she take it and donate her mattress to someone else. At that point she had tears in her eyes and went around thanking all the volunteers. As she left she felt sure she’d get her children back because of what she had found at the Depot. God is good!