Did you do Operation Christmas
Child shoeboxes as a kid? I loved shopping for the gifts and then playing tetras
with them to get everything I bought to actually fit into a shoebox. I
especially loved packing boxes for babies (shocker, I know)! Then as a teacher,
I got the chance to pack boxes with my classes. I remember bringing my packed shoebox
as an example my first year teaching and unpacking each item in front of my
class to show them the type of items that are good to put in the box. I
remember one kindergartner sighing, “I wish I was poor!” Oh dear! I think he may
have been missing the point! My kids would bring in more and more shoeboxes as
December wore on until we finally made it to the collection day when we’d all
lay our little hands on each and every box and everyone would get a chance to
pray for each kid that would receive each of our boxes, before we excitedly
carried them over to chapel to add them to the mountain of shoeboxes that the
whole school had collected.
Well, today I got to be on the
other side and it was such a surreal experiences! I got to get into a big
wooden boat piled in the back with shoeboxes and ride out to a nearby island to
deliver shoeboxes to the children waiting there for us! It was one of the
coolest, loveliest, hardest, happiest, saddest, most wonderful and overwhelming
experiences I’ve had. You’ll see why…
A group of our teachers sailed out
to the island along with the national director for Guinea of Operation
Christmas Child. Most of us had packed shoeboxes as kids and had done it with
our classes as well and we were all so excited to see the boxes in the back of
the boat! We prayed for the day and sang worship songs the whole way out to the
island! When we landed, the boxes were offloaded and carried ahead of us.
While
we were still a ways away from the school where we were headed, we could start
to hear the chatter and excitement coming through the trees. When we walked
into the clearing by the school, there were two big groups of kids (all in uniform)
all singing. As we approached, the singing turned into delighted squeals of “Fote,
Fote!” (not sure how to spell that, but it’s pronounced, “foh-tay” and is the
term that people say when referring to a white person here, but it’s not a derogatory
term). We walked the line of kids, shaking hands and giving high-fives as tons
of little hands reached out to touch us. All along the perimeter of the
clearing were parents, people from the neighboring village who had come to see
the “Fote,” and kids who weren’t wearing uniforms who didn’t go to the school.
The national director and his translators (he’s Guinean and speaks French, but
we had others there to translate into Susu and other local languages) used big
picture posters to share the story of the gospel in Susu. The kids did an
incredible job listening and participating and not crowding towards the boxes.
After the story, they started calling out names one at a time and that child
would come receive his or her shoebox while all the others looked on.
Once the shoeboxes started
appearing, all of the school kids, the whole community of parents, and other
village kids crowded in. Slowly the mass of people got closer and closer until
it was almost like a mosh pit as we tried to help with the crowd control. I was
so glad that they had a good system and plan worked out and that individual
names were being called because otherwise it could have turned riotous! We had
72 boxes to deliver and there were so many more than 72 kids in that clearing.
There were so many emotions flying as kids proudly held shoeboxes over their
heads and at the same time, other kids realized they wouldn’t be getting a box.
It was overwhelming and hard to know what to feel.
After all the shoeboxes had been
distributed to their proper owners, the crowd dispersed quickly and we were
left in the clearing with a few last adults and kids who just wanted to see
what we’d do next. We circled up and the national director asked us all to pray
in our own language at the same time for the islandsand it’s community. I bent
down and touched the dusty ground as my voice attempted to join in with the beautiful
cacophony of prayers going up in English, French, Dutch, Susu, Pular, and other languages, but I honestly couldn’t get
a whole lot of words out because there were tears streaming down my face both
from not really knowing how to feel and from the presence of God that was so obviously
present there in that circle. We prayed for God to reclaim that land and that
the people there would know His love for each of them.
We then went up to the school to
take a photo of the “delegation” as they kept calling us. My friend Lisa was
standing a few feet away under a tree to take the picture and as she took the photo,
not five feet from where she stood a machete fell out of the tree and landed on
the ground! That’s not important to the shoebox story, but I swear, there is
never a dull moment around here!
I’m just not sure what to do with
this experience. It was such a once in a lifetime opportunity for me and we
were all just so excited to be there and so were the kids and families who received
shoeboxes. But…
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What about the kids that didn’t get a shoebox?
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What about the Guinean people who don’t get to
have surgery while the ship is here this year?
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What about all the people that Jesus didn’t heal
while he was on earth because he was living within the constraints of a human
body and timeframe?
I just don’t know the answer, except to say that God doesn’t
expect me to fix everything. That’s why we have the body of Christ; why we all
work together. I can’t help everyone, but I can help the one person in front of
me and then the next after that, and the next after that.
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus
to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” -Eph. 2:10
