We have taken part in the Samaritan’s Purse ministry Operation Christmas Child the last few years. What fun it is to pack a box of special items to gift to a needy child in another land.
Here is the website all about Operation Christmas Child.
Our church ordered these festive printed boxes and this flier explained what to include while putting together your shoebox gifts.
Penny had a lot of fun trying out some of the items, like riding this toy jeep. Whee!!
Imagine the fun some little boy will have with this harmonica, making music wherever he goes.
I love the warmth of handmade items, so Penny and I found a way to personalize the little 4 X 6 inch sketchbook with colorful washi tape and fun animal stamps decorating some of the pages here and there.
Here is the scrapsheet displaying the variety of critters now decorating the inside of the sketchbook: monkeys and hippos, giraffes and alligators. I hope they will delight some little fellow who receives this. He can fill out the rest of the pages as he wishes with the box of crayons we included.
Another homemade gift is a drawstring bag we called a “Possible Bag” as kids. It can hold anything possible, and be a great place to store treasures.
Penny inspects the final stitches to be sure they are even and strong to hold up to lots of use.
Admiring the finished product. This bright blue print is cheery. I wonder what it will hold in its lifetime?
And now to try to fit it all in the shoebox! The sketchbook, a yo-yo, a toothbrush, a new plaid shirt, sunglasses… a nerf football too! How can we make it all fit?
We did it!! The possible bag is tucked on top, then with a caring prayer that God’s love will bless whomever this will eventually belong to, Penny must sit fiercely on the lid while I wrap the bulging box with a couple of rubber bands.
Next, it gets a green label for a BOY, and we check the box for a child 5-9 years old.
And now it is ready to send!!
Violet is interested in seeing where the shoeboxes go from here, so we send her off to find out….
First it goes to our church where they collected a total of 138 boxes. My friend, Cindy, from church helps at our town’s drop off location where all the area shoeboxes are collected, then packed into big brown boxes to be trucked out to a processing center. There are 8 processing centers in the United States.
Violet will go along with Cindy as she and her husband volunteer at the Processing Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Stay tuned for her report on what happens there!
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