Adventures in Bluegrass and Bible Studies: It's Shoe Box Time

This past Saturday, our church had our first ever Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Packing Party. What is Operation Christmas Child, you ask? Well, let me try to explain. Operation Christmas Child is a mission of Samaritan’s Purse International Relief. Samaritan’s Purse provides spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Their mission is to follow the example of Christ by helping those in need and proclaiming the Good News of the Gospel.

Operation Christmas Child provides shoeboxes full of goodies to children around the world. “A small shoebox can teach a child about the love of God, lead him or her to faith in Christ, inspire pastors, and plant new churches. What goes into the box is fun, but what comes out is eternal.” - http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/

We’ve been collecting items to go into these shoeboxes for the last few months. The idea is to get items that are fun, like toys, bracelets, and stuffed animals. But, we also wanted to include in our boxes hygiene items such as soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and deodorant. We included socks, mittens, hair bows, and hair brushes. And, let’s not forget, candy! We had a great turnout for our Packing Party.

This year we had a record of 159 shoe boxes filled. That’s amazing, especially if you consider the size of our church. We’re pretty small. We normally have around 80 people, which include children, in our Sunday School classes. We may have around 100 during worship service.

On a personal note, there were several times during the packing party that I felt the tears well up. I kept thinking of the children that might get one of our boxes. What kind of living conditions they face? Are they loved at home? Do they have parents? There are so many questions that I thought of while witnessing the packing of the shoe boxes. I packed a few boxes, but I mainly focused on taking photographs to share with our congregation, as well as trying to keep the boxes sorted (boys/girls by age group).

A few years ago, I went with our church to the distribution center in Boone, NC to help pack the boxes into larger shipping boxes so that they could be taken to their destination. It’s a humbling experience. There were so many boxes, and in some cases you can tell that people spent a lot of time preparing for these gifts. There were homemade toboggans and mittens. This makes me think, what can I do next year to let the child that receives my box know that they are loved. Not just by me, but by God Himself.

I hope that you and your church participate in Operation Christmas Child. It doesn’t just bring a child joy, but it also brings joy to the giver.

Here are a few photos from our Packing Party...