If Stealing's A Sin

Let me take you back about 6 months. We had a small pile of "found" money at the church. That means it was money we weren't expecting and was about $800.00. We started talking about trying to use the money to improve our setup/teardown crew by building or purchasing cargo crates on wheels.

I mentioned it to my friend Phil at Pasadena A/G. Their church had recently be given a large cargo crate, and couldn't find a use for it. So they passed it to me if I wanted it. We found that we could carry our entire sound system in it. It cut our sound setup by half. Fantastic. Then we picked up another box on wheels for our children's ministry area. Terrific.

A couple weeks ago we started trying to track down more of the crates, and found a company about an hour away that had three used. I called and inquired, and events looked as though they wouldn't work out for a while. We kept trying to line up a time to pick them up, and we kept getting put off, and finally they said we could come, but now there were only two. The price was $150/pc. but because we were a church they'd knock it down to $125.00/pc.

So I went down Monday to pick them up disappointed that there would only be two. When I got there, I ended up finding 5 on the premises. I loaded up the three I had come for and asked the fellow who to make the check out to and for how much. Then my negotiating skills kicked in. (Which is essentially shut up and let God work). The guy says, "Hmm. Did I say $80 or $90/pc? So I said, "I'm good with $80" thinking that I was getting a great discount. Then I just sat there, and he says, "Just make the check for $180.00." That's $60.00/pc. better than 50% off. It was awesome. I wrote the check and walked quickly to the truck, and drove away as fast I could while maintaining safety. My heart was racing and I was hugely excited that God had just helped us that way with a great deal. I called about a dozen people on my way back to Pasadena to tell them what had just happened and how I credited it to the Lord. One person I called I joked, "If stealing's a sin I need to confess." I just couldn't believe what a great deal we got. It totally reminded me of our early days and the Blue Drums. For those that don't know that story check it out HERE.

So this week I've been working on a couple of them to out fit them with shelves for the storage and transport of our equipment. We'll be customizing the trailer over the next couple weeks too to haul them, but it is going to greatly streamline our setup/teardown. Stay tuned.

--Ben