Gifts Being Gathered for 2006 Operation Christmas Child Outreach
by Allie Martin and Jenni Parker
November 16, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Shoeboxes filled with Christmas gifts for children around the world are being collected this week as part of Operation Christmas Child, a yearly international missions outreach project of evangelist Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse ministry.Jim Harrelson, a spokesman for Operation Christmas Child (OCC), says the shoeboxes delivered through the Christmas missions project contain small gifts, but they can have a big and lasting impact on the lives of the recipients. "These little boxes are little tools of evangelism and discipleship that we see penetrating and really transcending all cultures and geography and languages," he notes.
Through OCC, "everybody can be a missionary," Harrelson says. "Just the giving of the gift has great power," he explains, "and when we do that in the name of Christ and with all the prayer involved in this thing, it's just amazing to see children come to Christ with such humility and childlike faith."
Over the years of this annual Christmas outreach, Samaritan's Purse has collected many inspiring stories, including accounts "of children coming to faith and moms and dads coming to faith and extended families and even villages," the project spokesman observes. "We even had a church that started in a remote village in the Ukraine," he says, "all because the boxes came in, children came to faith, and [the villagers] realized that they needed to start a church."
As a result, Harrelson continues, "a missionary went out there, a Ukrainian missionary, and actually started a church." So in that remote village in Eastern Europe, he says, "They've got probably 80 people going to that church today."
Graham Urges OCC Shoebox Stuffers to Pray Over Their Gifts
In an interview with Associated Press, Samaritan's Purse president and CEO Franklin Graham noted that the Operation Christmas Child project expects to deliver eight million shoebox gifts to 90 countries this year. "Some of these countries are very difficult to get into," he says, "and we specifically look for the difficult areas of the world."
Franklin Graham | | |
And when he says difficult, Graham points out, that includes parts of the world "where there's been war, famine; we'll even get boxes into the Sudan to places like Darfur." While these are extremely tough places to go, he says, "we'll be there -- and we'll be there in Jesus' name, Lord willing."Graham says the shoebox gifts for children overseas should be turned in to OCC collection centers no later than next Monday (November 20). When delivered, each shoebox will be accompanied by a gospel tract explaining the real meaning of Christmas, he notes; and he is asking Christians who pack shoeboxes with gifts and personal letters this year to pray over them, knowing that these gifts will minister not only to the children who receive them but to their parents as well.
The head of Samaritan's Purse emphasizes the fact that OCC is a one-on-one ministry. "It's giving one box to one child at a time, to about eight million of them," he explains. "It's a personal touch. The boxes are a little bit like snowflakes -- every box is different. There's no two boxes out there that are identical.
"The box is a tool ... in the hands of the person who's going to give that box," Graham adds. "It's a tool to tell a child that God loves them, cares for them; that Christ died for them; and that there's a family somewhere in the world that loves them very much and has sent this gift to them." Also, the ministry leader says, "it's an opportunity not only to touch that child with the truth about God's son, Jesus Christ, but this opens up the door for us to talk to the whole family."
Graham sees Operation Christmas Child as a tremendous outreach and ministry opportunity. If each family or child who packs a gift shoebox prays for the child who will receive that box, he says, "I just think God will use this in a mighty way to reach millions of children for His name" and, through them, reach those children's families as well.
Associated Press contributed to this story.
