By: Ryan Duey
Every year tens of thousands of volunteers from churches around the world partner with the Humanitarian aid organization, Samaritan’s Purse to pack shoeboxes full of gifts to distribute to children across the world.
Known as Operation Christmas Child, this endeavor has been distributing shoeboxes around the world for 32 years. Larry Duch, Coordinator of the Flint Hills Area Team, said this is the largest outreach Christmas Program of its kind.
“Operation Christmas Child is a worldwide evangelical effort to spread the gospel around the world using a simple shoebox gift, and thus far we’ve distributed over 220 million shoe boxes, to over 170 countries worldwide.”
National Collection Week runs from November 18th to November 25th. Operation Christmas Child hopes to reach another 12 million children worldwide, and you can help. Duch said getting involved is very simple.
“You can go to samaritanspurse.org and go to Operation Christmas Child and there are links there on how to get involved. The other thing to do is look around for churches that are involved in Operation Christmas Child and some community organizations and just get with them to find out how you can get involved.”
The Clay Center United Methodist Church Youth Group is participating in the outreach program, packing shoeboxes to distribute to children in other countries. Find a drop-off location near you on the Samaritan’s Purse website.
