Operation Christmas Child

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…

-       What about the kids that didn’t get a shoebox?

-       What about the Guinean people who don’t get to have surgery while the ship is here this year?

-       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