Scrapping Can Be A Real Blessing...(Who Knew?)

“If you seek God, blessing will chase you.” I just found this thought and have seen it come true.

We didn’t imagine scrapping would bring us so many blessings. Here are a few…

The idea began with a few at church needing to gather some scrap and take it to the scrap yard.

The plan was that we would scrap for a few weeks and donate the money to the building fund.

Here we are at nine months later, with $39,000 donated, and many stories and blessing to share.

Thanks to one church friend donating much time to working the scrap, cleaning it, and taking the different metals to Chicago to get more money for our church.

He also worked in the field some days, too. He took one load to Illinois, told them our goal, and the owner donated money.

He then told him that we would pray for him and he donated some more money. Oak Grove prayed…

One dear church couple donated their trailer for many months to help with the various roads trips.

Facebook was invaluable to help with advertising. We started with pictures of a few families and their loads and family and friends jumped in and shared our goal of scrapping for our church.

We couldn’t keep up all summer long. I missed the pictures, but we were swamped.

The prospect News ran an article I wrote on our mission and we had several notify us because of the article. We appreciated the help from them.

Jim and I both enjoy working outside, so we already had overalls, boots, and work clothes to help in our adventure. We wore out tires, boots, and clothes.

Jack, our chocolate lab, loved going scrapping. He was older and it kept him in the hunt as we worked.

James, who worked at the scrap yard, would give Jack treats as we arrived. James trained Jack to expect treats really well.

One blessing happened as we were at Jim’s doctor’s appointment. His doctor asked about his scratched arms and he told him about our ministry. He finished the exam and then went to get his appointment card. Our doctor came out and donated $200 to our church. We felt blessed.

Later that day, we stopped to pick up a small load. A new couple to the area offered to pay us. Jim said no, the scrap is our payment. He told his wife to go write us a check for $1,000 for our building fund. We were shocked and felt blessed and were thankful.

Many scrappers helped us and offered their tractors to make the clean up go smoother. If they expected a young crew, well we were the ones that limped up, and we sure appreciated their help.

Some of the scrappers were giving us family scrap from many years of farming and living. We are 30 minutes from a scrap yard, which closes at 3:30, and is closed on Saturdays. No one wants to take a day off work to take their scrap over. The group efforts were appreciated.

Many kind people offered drinks and water. We usually had some, but appreciated it. Blessed.

One scrapper and friend went out to eat to thank us and paid for our lunch. Blessed again.

One Poplar Bluff friend offered the idea of fire barrels and donated many barrels to our cause. Our pastor jumped in and helped advertise them and many were sold quickly. Thankful and blessed.

One man needed his burnt out shop scraped and also wanted us to haul off his camper. We were able to scrap and sell the camper to a fine family to use during deer season. Blessings.

Several scrappers asked us to come again and Jim learned that it never hurts to ask if someone wants something scrapped. We benefited from many times that he asked for and received items.

One favorite asking was a very clean and organized trailer frame. It made our scrapping job so much nicer. Double blessing.

An early scrapping friend asked to have one item picked up and she donated $25 for our church.

Thankful.

Brick’s had many donations of old vehicles that were in need of scrapping. They would help us load the vehicles too. It was interesting to watch.

We thank a few eating establishments and gas stations for allowing us to come in with a lot of strap dirt on us.

We were delighted when we had a few churches help in our cause. The churches were in Poplar Bluff and Doniphan.

We had one business make a deal to fill our trailer with scrap and we would deliver it with 50 percent going to our church and 50 percent going to their church building fund.

Win-Win for all.

We had an industrious realtor that would offer scrap items to us often. He would give us addresses, had a scrap pile set up for us, and he kept things interesting…

A few men loaded our trailers with much scrap and we took the scrap to the buyer. We appreciated all their help.

One huge load started shifting and we stopped at an area church to work on it.

The large mower was falling off the side. We decided to drop the mower to the ground. It was too big to lift, so we were about to leave it and go get a tractor to put it back on.

A mail carrier stopped his route and helped Jim with it. We thanked him, and he was interested in the mower and offered to buy it and he would haul it home after work.

What an angel! We were able to continue to the scrap yard. He helped us, the mower helped him, and it all happened on a church parking lot. We decided he was a god. Wink.

We have learned the county better, been given tours of our beautiful Qzarks and farms, and have enjoyed “coming home” after being away for 25 years.

We have appreciated all the support we have received from our church and community during our scrapping campaign. We know we had God’s protection, large community support, and learned new scrapping skills along the way.

We have been blessed.