Operation Christmas Child

Our church is involved with Operation Christmas Child, an organization that encourages and promotes the collection of filled shoe boxes to send to children world wide during the Christmas season as a means of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This was the first year that we have ever participated in something like this.  It was a wonderful teaching opportunity for the kids.  We talked about what and why we were doing what we were doing and then went shopping to gather all the things we needed to fill the shoe boxes.  I was so proud of my kids as we walked up and down the toy aisle, wondering what other boys and girls would like and then putting it in the cart without them ever asking for a single thing...until Sarah Rose saw the stickers.  But by then, the kids had done such a great job that I had no problem at all allowing them to pick out a sheet of stickers for their own.



If they thought the empty shoe boxes were fun... 



...they just about flipped when I reintroduced the toys they had picked out the week before.  I'm not sure how much stuff you can pick out in the mix, but if you look close you may be able to see toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and other toiletries as well as the toys and art supplies.



We did four shoe boxes, one for each member of the family.  We've always tried to keep the gift giving part of Christmas just a small part of the holiday, but even so we figured we could sacrifice one more gift from each of us to give to another.  See Sarah's grumpy look?  She's upset she couldn't have the butterfly stickers we picked out for the girl boxes.  She got over it....an hour later!




I think Caleb really understood the point of the activity.  We also included a letter (maybe we'll get a letter back!) and was able to print a tracking bar code to find out where our boxes go!