Interesting donated things

One of those who read yesterday's 'donated things' blog asked what the top ten things were. So here goes (but there's thirteen):

1. Videos (VHS) - no one wants them and even the local tip refuses has stopped specifically having a place for them - it's the general landfill for them!

2. Electrical items that have stopped working or become dangerous - strange how people think that a non-working bit of electronics might work if given to the church.

3.Pottery - especially the three-legged shire horse and the amazingly chipped stuff.

4. Holiday mementoes - funny how sombreros and many other 'holiday' related stuff ends up here. Rarely finds a home outside that big tip in the sky!

5. Surgical and prosthetic stuff - yes, really. Crutches and the like (including bed pans) have all arrived at our doors as the tide of live ebbs away. The intention is accompanied by the sadness of loss and this is always a tough area. This sometimes leads into

6. Wheelchairs - Which are always pretty useful as I supply other churches so that they can offer one for visitors (and their own if the need arises) and increase their welcome.

7. China - sometimes wonderful, often mixed and not matched, chipped and being thrown away because they are not fit for use anymore. But still they come.

8. Glass - vases, glasses and kitchen stuff - can be useful and passed on, but often chipped, cracked and as useless to us as it was to the person who donated it!

9. Kitchenware - always useful if serviceable, just not always serviceable. Often find a home for this with the homeless we help locate and settle in.

10. Books. I love them but they are bulky and often no one wants them. If only I had the time to read many of the books because they are books! No more reason needed from my part, but they are bulky, heavy and difficult to store and so get passed to someone who uses them on stalls at various charity fairs.

11. Toys - many old McD toys plus many puzzles (incomplete) and stuff that kids have broken or grown out of (which our girls buy and bring home :-( ).

12. Children's clothes - which oddly rarely go anywhere as everyone seems to want new stuff, and

13. General clothing - which almost always, without fail, ends up going for rags (and so blesses the Air Cadets).

I hope this gives some insight into the sort of stuff that arrives (I've left out furniture and the numerous 'cottage suites') and provides some food for thought for the next time you fancy dropping stuff off at your local church building. We aren't charity shops and they are beginning to hate us for trying to offload the stuff given to us, so please think before you donate.

What do you mean there isn't a single pair!

pax

Church as a place of donated things

When the fifth-century prophet Malachi issued the command, "Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Little did he know, I suspect, that some of the words within verse ten of chapter three would so be taken to heart or acted upon.

One of the challenges I often encounter is the well-meaning person who has so much blessing that they don't have room for all their stuff. The, ". . you will not have room for it," phrase means that when this occurs, because I guess God has blessed the person with it all, they bring the overflow of their loft and shed to the church building in the hope that we will be able to find a use for it.

I have checked the various offerings and nowhere have I found a 'tat' offering, but it obviously exists, even if it is unspoken and unwritten, for oh so often I find bags of mismatched china, ornaments and pieces of glazed ware (often chipped or having a leg missing in the case of animals) and bits of electronics arrive at the church door. Sometimes there is a note . . . scene fades . . .

"Dear Vicar, we were clearing out the loft and wondered if someone might be able to make use of this television. The sound doesn't work but it has subtitles and so it might be useful if you know a deaf person."

I look at the 36" Cathode Ray Tubed monster which is almost dwarfing the mini parked in the car park (no one we know, they are just picking up their chinese takeaway and didn't want to leave it on the road in case it got damaged!!!). I try lifting it, but having once ordered a Charles Atlas body-building kit only to find I wasn't strong enough to open the envelope, but to no avail. Eventually three of us lug it into the car and, knowing no one who is both deaf and in need of a TV, we take it down to the tip.

We return to find a complete dinner service comprised of seventy-two (I kid you not) cups, saucers, plates and assorted jugs (and one of those multicoloured sand lighthouses from the Isle of Wight). Amazing, no two piece of the china matches and the collection of individual items must indeed be a treasure trove to the partially insane cleric and a source of torment to those who suffer from any form of OCD-related existence. I ponder the fate of this gift as these days the charity shops turn off their lights and lay on the floor as I pass lest I should enter and share my blessings.

What a wonderful thing it is to have a calling - the opportunity to meet odd people and acquire even odder things.

Pax

ps. How odd, as I finished this there was a knock at the door and someone was asking if we knew anyone who might like a new pair of slippers and granddad has just died and won't be needing them :-)

pps. The wonderful thing is that the stuff comes (in part) because of the relationships we have built and this is to be celebrated (just not with a three-legged porcelain shire horse!)