Stories I have heard while working at Operation Christmas Child

I want to tell you some stories about Operation Christmas Child that I heard while working as a coach at the Operation Christmas Child Warehouse in Charlotte for the season. My job is to teach volunteers how to process the shoeboxes. It has been a wonderful experience. We just completed 2.5 million boxes with 30,000 volunteers from 23 States. I even met a lady from Maine this past week.  

Here are some of the incredible stories I heard.
One of the first stories I heard was shared through a video from Operation Christmas Child video section. (www.samaritanspurse.org/article/small-texas-church-takes-on-a-god-sized-goal/) It was about a pastor and his wife who had suffered in the recent hurricane that had produced flooding in their Texas home. They would work on their home and then go to the church and work on the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes because it gave them normalcy. The incredible thing is that there were only 30 people in their Church and three of the families in the church had damage to their homes from the hurricane. As you watch the video you get towards the end and the pastor tells how many shoe boxes they have done.  He first said that they had completed 940 I think. And then he went on to say they had a grand total of over 8000. The cool thing was that they were able to go overseas with Samaritan’s purse and pass out the shoe boxes. It is a great video. 

Being a coach gives me an opportunity to meet a lot of different people. I have met homeschoolers, people from Kentucky, Florida, Ohio, Indiana and of course from Charlotte and the surrounding area. Many of them have impacted my life. I was impressed with a group of Mennonite women who brought a full tour bus load of ladies who worked very hard to get the shoe boxes ready for children. They are a special group of people. Through their compassionate hearts, they helped a woman out who was going through a difficult time. They gathered money ($900) and gave it to their coach to help her.  During my second week, I met a family who had adopted 10 children from China. Every one of these volunteers comes just to see what they can do to help the mission of the Operation Christmas Child. Many take vacation time and stay for week.

It is amazing what a shoebox can do in the life of a child. One of the cool things about these shoeboxes is that they have the potential to reach 10 people. One the ways it does is by the simple gifts in the shoeboxes.  People want to see what they received.  As each child gets a shoebox there a nice color magazine which talks about Jesus and how much He loves them. That can easily be seen by 10 people.

Let me tell you some of the stories that I've heard. The first one I like to tell you about happened recently. A young lady 8 years ago got a shoebox from somewhere down in South America. She didn't come to know Christ when she received the shoebox. Two weeks ago she was in Mexico City and Franklin Graham was there sharing and she went to the event.  Somehow she recognize the Samaritan's Purse logo for Operation Christmas Child. The cool thing is that she gave her life to Christ when Franklin Graham gave the invitation. Which reminds me, that prayers are a big part of what they do at Operation Christmas Child. All the boxes are prayed for five or six times a day. That prayer for a young lady in Mexico took 8 years to be answered. PTL!!

Another story I'd like to share with you is about a girl who lived in Haiti. She got a shoebox and gave her heart to Christ. They have a very strong discipleship program that goes right along with the shoe boxes.  She gave her heart to Christ and walked back home where her dad is the voodoo doctor of her village. She noticed four or five people standing out in front of her house. Later, her dad came out to bring another into the house, so he could do his voodoo magic on them. But the only person that was standing there was his daughter. He asked her, “Where are all the people?” She responded with something like this, "I told them about Jesus and they don't need you anymore." Dad got really mad and kicked her out of the house. Mom didn't like that because it was her baby so she went with her daughter. The cool thing is that the daughter led her mother to Christ. Now to make a long story short, she and her mother led the whole village to Jesus. Which in turn put the voodoo doctor, her father, out of business!!

Here's another story about how these boxes do such great things and make a difference in so many lives. They call Saturday full circle Saturday. Saturday is where they bring in someone who received a shoe box as a child and gave their life to Christ. These folks share their story on how a simple gift changed their lives. This lady who showed up for Full Circle Saturday during our daily devotion time shared about her life. She grew up on a farm.  Dad worked the farm and her dad was an alcoholic who got mean when he was drunk. When they were young her mom left and never came back. To this day she still doesn't know what happened to her mom. There was no body found or anything but her mom never came home. Her dad drank heavily and eventually lost her and her sister. He was put in prison and she was put in an orphanage. She began asking God who he was. One day at the orphanage the Operation Christmas Child people were there. In her own mind she was trying to understand God. So she went outside and asked God if he was real she said to herself that if God was real then when she threw up some leaves they would be blown to the left. Guess what happened, they blew to the left.  She went back in and got her shoebox. In the bottom of it she found a small dinosaur with a hole in the bottom of it. She didn't know what the hole was for. She finally figured out that she could sharpen her pencil by putting it in a twisting. She thought that was so cool! She also got burettes for her hair and lots of school supplies. For many of the children they cannot go to school unless they have supplies.  She also got some soap and to this day when she smells that soap it brings back really good memories.

One of the things they talk about during the training for coaches is to maintain the integrity of the shoebox. Years ago there was a box that came through that had maybe 10 pairs of gloves in it. The person who was looking through it thought that they should take out the gloves and put some other things in it. The coach said no we will keep the integrity of the box. So they kept the gloves in it. Somehow they tracked it. It went to a little boy who lived in a fishing village. He had to help his dad with the fishing and his hands were always cut open. Those gloves kept his hands from being torn up for a long time. Now isn’t that cool how someone prayed about what to put in the shoebox and God used it to help a little boy.

The best one I've heard during my time at Operation Christmas Child processing center was about a little boy who got a shoebox that was clearly marked for a boy. When it was time to open the shoebox a dress fell out. The person who gave the box to him said, “Son, I'm sorry that's the only box we have for you.” This little boy looked up with tears running down his face and replied, “I've been praying for a dress for my sister for 6 months.” God has a child for every one of the 12 million shoeboxes that have been put together.

I thought you would enjoy these stories there is a book written by Franklin Graham where you can read more of these stories. The links below will help you.

Promotion video: www.samaritanspurse.org/article/occ-book/

Place to purchase: www.amazon.com/dp/B00F11H8GW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

If you have any questions send me an email at pastorrandylewis@gmail.com or message me through Facebook.  I hope you have enjoyed how your shoebox makes a difference!