Operation Christmas Child

If you haven't heard of this, Operation Christmas Child is a ministry of Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse organization. A quick summary is that people around the U.S. pack shoe boxes with gifts for children of different age groups and then those shoe boxes are then shipped all over the world to kids (mainly in 3rd world countries) who wouldn't normally get any Christmas presents. The gospel is presented to these kids at the time they receive the boxes. It's a very cool service project.

We've enjoyed packing 2 or 3 boxes every year with the kids, but this year, my mom and dad REALLY got into the spirit of it and collected just a ton of stuff to fill boxes with (socks, underwear, toothbrushes, toothpaste, crayons, paper, stuffed animals, balls, jump ropes, cars, jewelry, etc.). So we all gathered at their house Sunday afternoon and filled boxes for a couple hours - we filled 52 boxes!!! It was so much fun, and felt so good. Here's our afternoon:








Now I only wish I could see where each and every box ends up - see each of the 52 kids that will get one of these boxes that we packed not only with fun stuff, but with love and prayer. How cool would that be?