Operation Christmas Child

My church is collecting shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child this Sunday and this year, I'm participating!  I chose to do a shoe box for a little girl, age 5-9, and I've been buying little things here and there for her for about a month now.  And having a ball doing it!  I felt like Santa Claus! 

Operation Christmas Child brings joy and the love of Jesus to 8.5 million needy children all over the world!  I am so happy to get to be a part of it this year.

Just LOOK at all those shoe boxes!!

Here's the stuff that I put in my shoe box.  

I'm enclosing a note and a couple of stamped envelopes and cards in case she wants to write me back.  If she does, you'll read about it here!  I really hope she does.  

I want a tambourine myself for Christmas (hint, hint) so a toy tambourine was the first thing I got, along with a jump rope and a pink bouncy ball.  Then I added pencils, crayons, a coloring book, some toothpaste, a pink toothbrush, soap and wash cloths, Tinkerbell sunglasses, barrettes, a hairbrush, bracelets, a baby doll and a stuffed butterfly.  It almost didn't all fit!

 

You can register your box online and track it until it's delivered!

I'm really excited about that.

If you have time, go check out the web site.  Watch the videos.  We are so blessed (and greedy!) in this country that most children open a gift on Christmas morning, throw it down and get another one (I've known a few like that) and it absolutely broke my heart to see how happy these children are with a box of crayons or a bouncy ball.  It really puts things in perspective.

I chose a plastic box that I got for a dollar at Walmart.  I thought she might like something more sturdy to store her things in and then I read somewhere online that some of these children carry water in those plastic boxes and I just squalled.  Perspective indeed.  What a difference a dollar might make to her.

When they receive these boxes, they are also given a booklet printed in their own language telling the story of the greatest gift of all, God's gift to us, His Son Jesus.

I am so excited to see where my shoe box ends up!  Jesus already knows who she is, where she is and He's already seen her face when she opens it.

I really hope she's always wanted a tambourine.