A great new volunteer opportunity

Some of you may have heard of Operation Christmas Child, a ministry in which Samaritan's Purse sends shoeboxes full of Christmas gifts to needy children around the world. My hiking friend Tammy attends Poplar Springs Baptist, a small church of around twenty members in Tallapoosa, and would you believe this congregation is giving over one thousand (yes, one thousand!) shoeboxes this year? So on Saturday, I helped with the packing of the gifts donated by this generous church. The volunteers have this down to an art form, and everything was so well organized.

Here's Tammy standing before a wall of shoeboxes ready to be packed with goodies!

Boxes are marked for a boy or a girl and are labeled by the child's age. Every child gets a big "wow" toy, typically a doll or stuffed animal for girls and a tightly packaged soccer ball with its own pump for the boys, and they also all got a notebook, coloring book, crayons, pencils, a spoon, a toothbrush and wash cloth, and some got clothes, shoes, socks, underwear, and more. I was astonished at how much you could pack into a shoebox! There were also bins full of tiny filler objects like yo-yos and chalk and plastic toys galore.

Tammy herself stitched five hundred teddy bears and bunnies so that children could enjoy these too!

This was one of my favorites (and no, I didn't tuck one away, though it was tempting).

When a shoebox was straining to close, as they often were, volunteers wrapped a rubber band around it, which apparently is permitted. I also learned that flat objects like stickers are easy to add, and I was delighted to find some with teacups on them! (Speaking of tea, I didn't get a photo, but the church brought in tasty sandwiches, snacks, and desserts for us at lunchtime, and I was quite happy—and very thirsty for—the Milo's sweet tea that arrived!)

I'm told that we ended up packing 566 of the shoeboxes that day, and I was especially grateful that we stopped several times and prayed over the boxes and the children who will receive them.

And as always, I'm thrilled that groups like this one provide dolls in an array of skin colors. I hope the precious little girl who gets this one is as excited to receive it as I was to pack it!