November 18-25, 2024, is officially National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child (OCC) Shoeboxes!
If your family is anything like ours, it is a week we look forward to each year. But also like our family, this year’s collection week may have slipped up on you.
No worries! There’s still plenty of time to purchase and pack a shoebox filled with Christmas goodies for kids around the world.
For those unfamiliar with OCC, it is an outreach of Franklin Graham’s worldwide ministry known as Samaritan’s Purse. It began in 1993, when Graham received a request for help filling shoeboxes with Christmas gifts for children in Eastern Europe. Graham relayed the need to Pastor Ross Rhoads of Calvary Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, and within weeks, the church packed over 11,000 boxes, each containing a personal letter to the child recipient.
With those gifts from Calvary Church and others from Canada, over 28,000 shoeboxes were sent to children in the Balkans that year. And since then, more than 220 million children in over 170 countries and territories have received OCC shoeboxes filled with toys, school supplies, and hygiene items.
But it is a dual ministry because not only are the children who receive OCC gift boxes blessed, but the people who purchase, pack, and ship those gift boxes are equally blessed. For truly, the joy of participating in OCC makes it just as much fun to give as it is to receive.
In fact, some of our family’s best memories involve shopping together for a boy or girl who we will never know or even see. For our kids, there was just something absolutely amazing about finding the perfect gifts for those shoeboxes.
Maybe, it comes down to the fact that it really is anonymous. We can only imagine the joy of a child somewhere all the way across the world opening a box with goodies that we sent from our small town in Mississippi. And for our boys, it really became a time of ministry. I saw their little hearts flung wide open as they prayed for just the right gifts to pack in their boxes.
Sometimes, that meant that their dad and I had to trust their prayerfully made choices, like the time our youngest insisted on tucking a very, very expensive MLB-signed item in his box. It made no sense to us, but our son insisted that “God told him” this little boy in some distant country also loved Ken Griffey Jr. as much as he did.
Talk about the faith of a child! And little children leading! That shoebox was monumental for the entire Lucius family. See note about my AFA blog!
So, yes, we love packing OCC shoeboxes. And yes, we waited until the last moment this year.
But have no fear, Samaritan’s Purse has everything needed to get the job done! Simply go to the OCC website (https://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/operation-christmas-child/) for gift suggestion lists, packing instructions, printing labels, and the nearest, local drop-off sites.
Visitors to the website can also “Build a Shoebox” online with virtual shopping. They also have online tracking for your shoebox to follow your shoebox and see just how far it travels to reach its precious child recipient!
And for those who simply cannot afford to shop this year, there is the option of adopting an OCC shoebox and helping to pay its shipping cost. Look online for that donation link as well. Or find out how to volunteer at an OCC processing center!
Truly, there is a way for everyone to participate, and there’s still plenty of time this week (November 18-25) to pack and drop off an Operation Christmas Child shoebox full of love for a child in need!
But remember – the greatest joy will not be the gifts inside that box. The greatest gift will be the giving of that OCC shoebox!
*All photos are courtesy of Samaritan’s Purse
