Jim Brangenberg: Did you know that when you retire, your calling doesn't retire? Your calling is a lifetime calling. And if you're still around, God's not done with you yet. We say here at iRetire4Him if you got a pulse, you got a purpose. If you're not dead, you're not done.

You've tuned into iRetire4Him, the voice and resource of the Retirement Reformation, an organization dedicated to you, the retiree who loves Jesus and wants purpose for all of your days, especially the ones ahead of you. Bruce Bruinsma joins us joins us today as he does for every episode. As the founder of the Retirement Reformation, he wants to walk alongside you so that you could find purpose for all of your days. And I'm your host, Jim Brangenberg. We invite you to check us out online Retirement Reformation.org, and also check out our YouTube channel. Just look for iRetire4Him on YouTube.

We're just a little over three months away from Christmas. It's hard to believe. Have you started shopping yet? What's on your list? Maybe it's a new computer, a new tv, maybe a new deck? What if your dream for Christmas was simply to live or maybe to have a meal and a clean water? The truth is that most of the world's population doesn't look forward to Christmas because it's just another day. But Samaritan's Purse is hoping to change all that for millions and millions of kids around the globe.

Their Operation Christmas Child program mobilizes hundreds of thousands here in the United States in order to collect and deliver shoe boxes full of goodies and the shoe boxes to kids who will appreciate every single thing in the box and of course the box as well. We're going to focus this new series talking about Operation Christmas Child . Today we're going to focus on bringing your family and getting involved in Operation Christmas Child and how does that be a blessing to your family and the families in your community?

We're heading back to Wild Peach Texas to talk with Mark and Cherry Brumbelow and how their work within Operation Christmas Child is changing the world, giving them purpose and impacting their family. Mark and Cherry, welcome back to iRetire4Him.

Mark Brumbelow: What a privilege to be back with y'all.

Jim Brangenberg: I hope you feel that way when we get to the end of the show, Mark, but I'm glad you said that.

All right. So just for in case somebody's tuning in today that wasn't, didn't catch our last podcast. Cherry, how old are you and Mark?

Cherry Brumbelow: I just turned 60 and Mark is 63.

Jim Brangenberg: So you're not really retired yet. You're both still working. And in our last podcast, Mark said he's a pastor of a small church in unincorporated Wild Peach, Texas. I can't say the way he does it. Wild Peach, Texas. All right. And by the way on the last I on the last podcast I forgot to give Mark an opportunity to apologize to you, Cherry, for calling you his old wife. Mark, did you want to...?

Cherry Brumbelow: That's alright. I always know he's older! (laughter)

Jim Brangenberg: Mark, I don't know if you wanted to say you're sorry

Mark Brumbelow: Hey, when you're speaking the truth, you don't have to apologize a lot.

Jim Brangenberg: Mark, you just missed an opportunity that could have gained you bonus points for several years. Okay. Moving on then. Sorry, folks. Mark just missed that chance, all right, to have it recorded on video and audio.

All right. Cherry, how old do you think the average Samaritan Purse volunteer is?

Cherry Brumbelow: Boy, I'm going to be putting a guess at it, but I would say between 55 and 70 would be my guess. And 80. Yeah, and older for sure. And because I know for me, I really will never forget this. Our youngest son moved out when he was right, I guess he was 18. And I really found myself lost. Our kids were way spread out. So I had been being a mama for many years, and I quite didn't know what to do with myself when he moved.

And then I became more aware of the Ministry of Operation Christmas Child year round work. We'd been packing shoeboxes for a long time, but I didn't realize that there were people that worked in this ministry as volunteers on a year round basis. And so I think it's God's timing that shortly after our youngest son moved out, I became aware of the ability to volunteer as a year round worker with Operation Christmas Child.

And so I consider myself an empty nester, didn't know what to do with myself. And I found this ministry and I'll tell you, it has changed my life. And I believe through that it's affected our grandkids. I've got a wonderful story about how my very own younger brother was saved because of the influence of Operation Christmas Child. Just this ministry is multifaceted and has just spread out through my whole family. I love it.

Mark Brumbelow: And has profoundly changed our church.

Cherry Brumbelow: Yes. Absolutely.

Bruce Bruinsma: One of the things that that impresses me is that, there is a continual renewal of the understanding of how God works . And that, in fact, when we find meaning and purpose in work for him, even that opens doors and pathways for conversation, certainly providing meaning and purpose and the joy that comes as a result of that.

My grandfather had a saying, said, Bruce, once begun is half done. And so just simply finding a point of beginning and then doing it in community. So I think you got a pretty astounding number. Let me ask the question. Now your church has about 55 members. Is that about right? Okay. So under 60. And how many boxes is that group of 55 people going to pack?

Mark Brumbelow: God's given us the utterly impossible goal to pack 15, 000 of these boxes this year. But I'll tell you, if God's for you, nobody can be against you. Without Him, we can't succeed, but right now, with Him, we can't fail. But now, I'm proud to tell you that here in August that 10, 660 of them boxes are ready to go today. And, Brother Bruce, in May, God let us pass a milestone.

It's really hard for me to wrap my mind around, but he allowed us, in the last ten years, to pass up 100, 000 shoeboxes set out from a little obscure rural church to the far corners of the earth. And with the best statistics that we have, maybe a child will get saved for every five shoeboxes sent.

Somebody that was far better at crunching numbers than me pointed out that's the equivalent of 32 children being saved every Sunday for 10 years. And I don't know of another way that a little obscure rural church , Brother Jim, in an unincorporated community in South Texas could make a bigger splash on the kingdom than that. And I praise God for where he's put us.

Bruce Bruinsma: Let me ask you a couple practical questions. The packing of those boxes, I know that you have a, will have a special weekend where you will invite people to come in and that you'll pack a lot of them. But where are most of them packed? Are they most packed in a family setting or in a small group setting? Or tell our audience a little bit about the variety of ways that this can happen.

Cherry Brumbelow: Sure. We'd love to. So our church building is just a one room schoolhouse kind of thing. And so what we do is we shop, we process the toys and everything, get them ready, and then we pack them all in one week. And we do that 10 months out of the year.

So 10 months out of the year, we have what we call packing parties and we'll shop on Thursday, process all of those toys and get them ready on Friday, and then Saturday, our church family comes together and packs those shoe boxes. And so that's how we are able to do so many is we actually start our first packing party of the year is on New Year's Eve. We start at 7 p. m. on New Year's Eve and we pack till midnight, and that's our first packing party of every season.

Bruce Bruinsma: So where in the world do you store 15, 000?

Jim Brangenberg: That's what I want to know. Where do you got these things stored? Texas is a big place, but

Mark Brumbelow: Storage became a huge problem pretty quick. But God, out of the open window of heaven, provided a 40 foot shipping container. We insulated it and air conditioned it to where crayons won't melt in the boxes. And we painted it shoe box green and, brother Bruce, it didn't beautify our property, but folks know where we're at now.

What we found as God's grown this is that the 40 foot container is no longer big enough. And so we had to fill a box truck full of shoe boxes and haul them to the processing center in Dallas, is the one that is nearest to us. And they will take shoe boxes throughout the year. And so we're about to have to make a second load.

Bruce Bruinsma: What I love about that story is the fact that it's not a random activity, but it's systematic. It's carefully thought out. It's efficient and obviously it's effective. And so I just really appreciate the fact that it's, again, it's not just a random activity. Are there families in your church or in your community that pack boxes in their home also?

Cherry Brumbelow: Yeah. And so these boxes that we were talking about are our church family. But then Brazoria County throughout the county, churches and individuals and companies and groups packed shoe boxes also. And one of the things that I love to look at over the years, so I became area coordinator here in 2016. In 2014, all of Brazoria County packed 3000 shoe boxes. Last year, Brazoria County packed almost 25, 000 shoe boxes. So it's exciting and thrilling for us what's happening in our church at Grace Baptist Church but it's also thrilling and exciting for me to see what God's doing in our community.

Jim Brangenberg: Yeah, I really want to talk about the kind of volunteers that you're looking for and how our audience can get involved with Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child program. Make sure you check them out online samaritanpurse. org samaritanspurse. org.

But Bruce, before we get to that, when we start asking Mark and Cherry... you've written Six books , all of them for people either pre retired or maybe you've written more than that but those are the six that I know of. Those are the six I have in my bookshelf . Talk about these books and how they can help every person listening today find purpose in the retired years

Bruce Bruinsma: . The very first book that God prompted me to write is called the Retirement Reformation. Not a lot of creativity in that name, but that the purpose of that book was to lay out the opportunity to lay out the need that our Christian community has and the opportunity for those that are 60 and older to be able to make a difference for the kingdom, to recognize the fact that there are many that are not, and then how can we encourage them to become engaged?

 The book that was just published and just came out called Living the Fruitful Life is really the answer to the question of how do I know what God wants me to do? And it's the introduction of the Holy Spirit that is in our lives and where God's call on our life is really manifested and made clear to us.

One of the things that we write about and that we talk about is that God opens doors. God brings us to places that we don't expect. God says, Hey, look at this. And that's the time when we have the choice of saying I don't know if I'm capable of doing that, or I don't know if I could do that. To be able to find opportunities like the one we're talking about here, that it doesn't matter whether you're 18 months or 100 years, that in fact, you can step into that.

It's like prayer. Doesn't matter whether you're 93 in a wheelchair or you're 18 and just accepted Christ, that you can pray. And so as these things evolve and we have these opportunities, the books prompt people to be able to be open to what God has planned for them and then to step into it and then to be ready for him to do things and open new doors beyond that, that you can't even imagine.

And Cherry, like you had shared in our previous episode about your granddaughter wants to be a missionary. She's 15 years old and she can be a missionary by being part of this process now, and then God will open additional doors to who knows where he will lead her, guide her, and that we can rejoice with her.

Jim Brangenberg: So go out to retirementreformation. org, click on the tools tab, and then click on books, and you'll find all of the books that Bruce has written to help get each one of us connected with purpose in the final period of our lives, the three stages of retirement.

Now back to Mark and Cherry Brumbelow in unincorporated Wild Peach Texas talking to us about Operation Christmas Child. I want to know right now what kind of volunteers you're looking for? There's a lot of people listening, some of them stuck in homeowners association purgatory in florida or in arizona and they're looking for purpose and they want it to matter for the kingdom. How can they - what kind of volunteers you're looking for?

Cherry Brumbelow: For the year round volunteers, there are so many things you can do. We have teams all over the nation, and you again can find out about that through the website, but we need area coordinators. That's somebody that's willing to build a team in that area, and on those teams, we're looking for church relations coordinators, people that will go out and talk to the churches, meet with church groups.

We need community relation coordinators that will go and meet with the Lions Club and the Boy Scouts and all the community things going on. We need student relation coordinators and this can be high school and college age students. You can be a volunteer year round with Operation Christmas Child starting at age 15.

And so we need people that will speak to college students, speak to the high school kids about the ministry of Operation Christmas Child. One of our very most important parts is we need a prayer team like Mark talked about. He's on my prayer team and they focus on praying for me, for my coordinators, for events that we have, they're constantly praying for us that God will move and guide and lead us.

And then we need admin people. We need people. I thank God for my admin because she knows a lot more about technology than I do. So when I mess something up, Mallory can fix it for me. And there's a media relations person that helps us get into TV and radio and newspaper. So you can take your skill set and apply it to many of these positions that we need for year round ministry with Operation Christmas Child.

And then, of course, there's always, we always need shoebox packers. People to put these boxes together, and you can do it as an individual in your home. We can walk you through that, help you, and lead you. So that is always a need is for shoebox packers.

Jim Brangenberg: Mark?

Mark Brumbelow: In our church they're mostly old people.

Cherry Brumbelow: We are.

Jim Brangenberg: Mark, we don't call them old people on the show. We call them chronologically superior.

Mark Brumbelow: Okay. We've got a lot of them folks in our church (laughter) and I'll tell you, I praise God for them. Brother Bruce, I know that a scripture that's very near and dear to my heart. It's Psalm 92 and verse 13, and it says those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. And then it goes on and says they shall still bring forth fruit in their old age. And oh, I've never seen a group of chronologically superior people that are bringing forth fruit in their old age better than some of the members of Grace Baptist Church. We've got people that they work tirelessly. They've got a brand new zeal. They've got a enthusiasm to serve the Lord. And y'all, they're doing it very effectively too. And God's using them. And sometimes, through eyes of faith, God peels the curtain back a little bit.

Cherry Brumbelow: Yeah.

Mark Brumbelow: And lets me see a little glimpse of the other side. And a multitude of children dressed in robes of white. Amen. And praise God that we can be a part of this ministry when we're chronologically superior.

Cherry Brumbelow: One of the sweetest testimonies I ever heard from some of our folks was a family that joined our church, probably a little older than Mark and I, and they came and they were just didn't know where God wanted them to be at the time and they came.

They were visiting our church and saw what we were doing with Operation Christmas Child, got very involved, ended up joining our church. And when they joined the church, they shared the sweetest testimony with our folks. They said, God brought us here to Grace Baptist Church to be a part of Operation Christmas Child so we could finish well.

Jim Brangenberg: Amen. Amen.

Cherry Brumbelow: That is a statement that many of our folks up in their 70s and 80s and 90s would tell you today if you would talk to them, that they feel like God has brought them to Grace Baptist Church to find an opportunity where they could finish well in their service to the Lord.

Jim Brangenberg: What's beautiful about the ministry of Operation Christmas Child, offered to everybody through Samaritan's Purse, online at samaritanspurse. org, is that this is a family deal. This isn't just for chronologically superior folks although we need all of you listening to get involved at one stage or another. This is not something you have to do all year long. Maybe you're still working and you're in your mid 70s fine.

You can volunteer a couple weeks a year, but maybe you are quote unquote illegally retired according to biblical principles, and you need purpose because God's not done with you yet. They could use you year round . But here's the question. How do we suck our families into this? You said you're a church full of chronologically superior folks. How do you get them to drag their kids in and their grandkids and their great grandkids?

Cherry Brumbelow: You know what? I think that's a great question. And I think the answer to that is share a truthful, compelling message with passion and help them to see that what this is making a difference in the world, for the kingdom sake, for eternity. And I think that kids these days are looking for things that are real and true and eternal. And I think if they see that in us, that will draw them in.

We don't, we do not have to beg our people. We don't have to coerce or trick our grandkids into being a part of this. They're like anxious. Is it time for a packing party yet? Oh, Grammy, can I go shopping with you and Papaw? And I think it's because we've shared the message with them, but not only in words. We didn't just tell them this is how it is, but they see that we believe it. It's a passion we have. They hear it when they hear the messages that their Papaw preaches. They hear it in God's word that this is the right thing to do.

Go ye into all the world. This is how we're doing that. And they see that it's real, they know it's true, and they want to be a part of it. So it's not as hard as we would think, that we have to trick them, or coerce them, or beg them, please serve. They're coming to us because they see that it's real.

Jim Brangenberg: Mark, did you ever give Cherry your pulpit? Because she's hard to interrupt. I just I want to make sure, Cherry, you said at the beginning of the podcast that because of Operation Christmas Child, your brother came to Christ. You've got to tell that story. Got to keep it shorter, but before we go, I think the audience is going, Hey, what about that story?

Cherry Brumbelow: I would love to tell you. So what happened, I love my baby brother. He lives in Ohio and we've been apart for years and years. And he knows that Mark and I love the Lord and I've shared the gospel with my brother. And he said to me, Cherry, I love you. And I respect you and Mark. But I just don't buy it. He said, I've seen too many people that claim to be Christians and they act worse than I do. And I said little brother, I'll just pray for you. And he said, Okay.

My brother and his wife come and visit us every now and then. And a few times they came to our Operation Christmas Child packing parties. My brother was at a packing party one time and Hannah again, my oldest granddaughter, was about six or seven years old. She was taking her uncle around showing him how to pack the shoe boxes. And after she packs her box, she does this to this day, she'll go off in a corner by herself and she'll pray over every single box that she packs.

So she said to her uncle, let's go pray. He said you go ahead and do that. And Hannah began to pray over that shoebox, pray for that child, pray for their salvation. That rocked my brother to his core. Sometime later, he came to Mark and he said, I want to know more about Jesus. And Mark was able to lead him to the Lord.

Shortly after that, he called me, gone back to Ohio. He called me and he said, Sis, do you want to know why I accepted Jesus as my savior? And I said yeah, I want to hear your testimony. He said, because that day at the packing party...

Mark Brumbelow: he said that he knew that our little granddaughter wasn't just talking in the thin air, but that she is really talking to somebody. And if God was real, he wanted to know him.

Cherry Brumbelow: Yes.

Jim Brangenberg: Amen.

Cherry Brumbelow: And he accepted. This ministry is so dear to our hearts. We could tell you stories all day long, but that's an example of my very own little brother that I love so much came to know Jesus through the ministry of Operation Christmas Child.

Jim Brangenberg: Bruce, any final thoughts before we close out today?

Bruce Bruinsma: No, I don't think so. I think the germs of the passion that God has put in them through the experiences that they've had , we just thank you for the transparency and your willingness to share. And I have to believe that our audience, if they're listening at all, knows that there's something real here and there's something that they can participate in, and that God will use it to open doors that they can't even imagine.

And again, as my grandfather said, once begun is half done. So let's agree that we're going to begin with Operation Christmas Child, if we haven't been involved. And let the Holy Spirit lead us into what's next.

Jim Brangenberg: And I think we need to do a Retirement Reformation weekend in Wild Peach, unincorporated Wild Peach, Texas, so we can sit alongside Mark and Cherry Brumbelow.

Mark and Cherry, thanks for being with us today on iRetire4Him.

Mark Brumbelow: Thank you, gentlemen, and you're invited to Wild Peach.

Jim Brangenberg: But the question is are there Wild Peaches still in Wild Peach, Texas?

Cherry Brumbelow: Not anymore.

Mark Brumbelow: Oh, but there's some wild people.

 (laughter)

Jim Brangenberg: I love that. I love that. Check out Samaritan's Purse and Operation Christmas Child online, SamaritansPurse. org. You've been listening to iRetire4Him, the voice and resource of the Retirement Reformation. I'm your host, Jim Brangenberg, and of course we've had Retirement Reformation's very own founder Bruce Bruinsma with us today. We're Christ followers, journeying from retirement to reformation so we can ultimately say, iRetire4Him.