Shoebox Blessings

In seven weeks, I witnessed firsthand how God worked in His amazing and mighty ways through Operation Christmas Child (see background here).

I thought I would pack a couple of shoeboxes this year; but I was also curious to see if a few others might want to be involved. However, since I was still relatively new to the town where we now lived, I was content with the idea of having a few people involved and perhaps packing a couple dozen shoeboxes.

It turned out my ladies' Bible study leader at church had wanted to involve the group in something and she had heard of OCC. So I had a group of ladies with whom to work! A few of them then got their Sunday School classes and the school where they worked involved. One of them also received donations in large quantities from her dentist, hairdresser and neighbors! My own neighbors also generously donated shoeboxes from their closets, and a local shoe store saved 30 boxes for the project!

While all this was unfolding, I learned that another lady from Bible study happened to be on the Missions Committee at church and she suggested linking OCC to the church-wide missions event which would happen to take place right before National Collection Week in November. We were able to set up a shoebox packing party, and the Missions Committee included OCC as one of the many exhibitors of the Ministry Fair (see pictures below). During the church-wide event, we had a booth that attracted a good number of visitors who expressed great interests in packing shoeboxes. I gave away all the brochures!

Despite the short time frame, over 100 shoeboxes were packed/collected and nearly $500 were donated through the ladies at Bible study. That was much bigger than the two shoeboxes I was going to pack. We even received help to drop off the shoeboxes at the collection point during National Collection Week.

While the results are great and well beyond my expectations, I am thankful to those, many of them children themselves, who participated in the project. Whatever they donated - empty shoeboxes, filler items, money, time - I see their beautiful hearts for others as many went out of their way to help. To think that many children around the world will be receiving Christmas presents and hearing the true meaning of Christmas as a result is, of course, even greater.

This project is not about me or what I wanted to do; I am simply thankful to God for allowing me to be a part of His awesome work.

This was the booth at the Ministry Fair at church. On display were some of the packed shoeboxes.

More boxes (but not all)!