Day 10 - a Wilson family tradition::Operation Christmas Child

I almost forgot to post today, but thankfully I remembered before I fell asleep!  I will just do a quick post, and then it's bedtime for me.  I wanted to share a holiday tradition that we started doing about three years ago.  We fill a shoe box for Operation Christmas Child which is sponsored by Samaritan's Purse.  For those of you who don't know, it is an organization that does a lot of work all over the world, and one part of their program is Operation Christmas Child.  They give shoe boxes that are filled with toys, toiletries, and other special items and then give them out to kids all over the world.  You grab a box, choose if you want to fill it for a boy or a girl, and then decide what age of the child your box will be geared towards.  Then you fill it with special items that some child thousands of miles away will open up and be so thrilled to receive.  My girls have fun picking out things that another girl would love, and we usually choose to fill the box for the 10-14 year olds, because the organization usually gets fewer of those.

Some things that we include in our shoe box are: hair accessories, things like stickers, bookmarks, markers, hygiene items like toothbrushes and bar soap, and then we choose a few toys like puzzles or a yo-yo.  We also choose a larger item that is the focus of the box, usually a doll.  We also include a note for the child who receives our box, to tell them that Jesus loves them and so do we.  After we fit everything in, we drop off the items to the collection center and it gets sent to some special girl.  When you choose to purchase the shipping label online, you will receive a notification by email of what country your box ended up going to.

We really enjoy doing this together as a family, and it is a great activity for my girls to participate in.  I remind them just how lucky they are - that we all are - to have as many things as we have.  We take so many things for granted and our biggest problem after Christmas is finding room for all the toys, books, and clothes. This box will likely be the most special thing that the child receives all year.   Imagine if everything special that you owned could fit in a shoe box?