A Box Full of Hope

What did you receive for Christmas last year?

How about the year before that?

And before that?

I’m guessing the majority of my readers need to think hard to recall what gifts they’ve been given for Christmas, birthday, or other events in recent years. I know I do. That doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate or like them. It probably just means I have received much.

Suppose you had received only one gift in your entire life. Do you think you’d remember what it was? Who gave it? Would you cherish it? Might you still have it? 

Somewhere this year, a child will receive the first gift he or she has ever—and may ever—receive. He will remember. Will it come from you?

Thanks to Operation Christmas Child, this scenario will repeat itself millions of times as the program continues to grow.

In 1990, Damaris Vezantan lived with her parents in Romania and was one of the very first children to receive an Operation Christmas Child shoebox gift packed by someone like you. She still remembers the occasion. The Eastern European nation was just coming out of decades of brutal leadership, and conditions were so bad that water was available only until noon each day.

“The shoebox I received when I was nine included items like soap, a small doll, crayons and markers, hair clips, and a notebook, with a locket that I still have.” Damaris said.

The box also included a picture of the family who packed it for her, with a Bible verse on the back: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:15, NIV).

“Reading the verse over and over and trying to remember it, I saw it right there: “For God so loved the world that he GAVE. It was the greatest lesson I learned that day,” Damaris remembered. 

Today, Damaris is a Canadian citizen and participates with her family in Operation Christmas Child. She has even travelled to Senegal and presented children with shoebox gifts in person, watching the joy on their faces as she recalls the impact such a gift made in her own life.

For some kids, finding a notebook and a few pencils in their shoebox means the difference between attending or not attending school. When you consider the ripple effects a gift like that can make as one child receives an education and the trajectory of their life changes, you can see how something so little can mean so much. That’s why they call it the ripple effect. You touch one tiny spot on the water, and it grows all the way to the shore.

You will probably never meet the person who receives your gift or hear their story of the way it changed their life.

Then again, you just might.

You’ve got until November 24 to pack your box and deliver it to the Portage Mall. Don’t miss out! The one who said “it is more blessed to give than receive” knew what he was talking about--he gave the greatest gift of all. Let’s spread the love around and do our part to keep those ripples moving all the way to the shore.

Change a Life through Operation Christmas Child

In 2010, I felt so moved by the story of Lejla Allison, born and raised in war-ravaged Bosnia, that I wrote a play based on her journey.

As an 11-year old, Lejla witnessed horrific things no child should ever see. Her world was so unsafe, she feared to take a step out her door lest it be her last.

Lejla begged her parents not to make her go to school because she did not own a decent pair of shoes. Her dad tied her old, torn sneakers shut with wire, but the cold and wet squeezed through anyway.

“My toes hurt to the point that I don’t think I’ve experienced any worse pain,” Lejla says. “I went off to school very angry. I made up my mind that perhaps that day, I would not come back home. I was sick and tired of being hungry, scared, poor, hurt, of seeing other people getting hurt, other people die. I simply felt like life had no meaning anymore.”

When Lejla arrived at school after an hour of walking, she discovered the children gathered around. They told her shoeboxes were being handed out and if she wanted one, she should go over there. “What do I need a shoebox for?” she thought. “I have no shoes to put in one.” 

When a man brought her a box anyway, to her delight she found inside a brand new pair of white sneakers.

“Out of all the things in this world, I got shoes!” Lejla says. “I realized at that moment somebody, somewhere, cared enough. They didn’t know me, they didn’t know anything about me. That same instant, I knew it was someone who knew my mind, someone who knew exactly what I wanted who sent me those shoes. And who else could know but the Lord himself?”

My play, Somebody Else’s Shoebox, introduces the audience to the fictional person who packed Lejla’s box—a misguided, scatter-brained but lovable woman who thought you were actually supposed to fill your shoebox with shoes. She would never know her gift went to exactly the right person.

Other stories like Lejla’s appear on the Samaritan’s Purse website (see address below).

Izabella McMillion, who grew up in Romania, received a shoebox as a child. Now she helps distribute shoeboxes there.

“When we faced children who were so expectant,” Izabella says, “I could see myself in those eyes and I know they were thinking the same thing I was thinking, that ‘I am receiving a gift and I haven’t done anything for it.’ One box changed my life and allowed me to understand God better and I’m able to turn around and multiply the blessing by encouraging so many others to pack shoe boxes.”

When you anticipate your own children or grandchildren tearing into their gifts this year, consider that for most of the kids who receive a shoebox, it will be the only gift they ever receive in their life. Not this Christmas. Not this year. Their entire life.

Is it any wonder it’s such a big deal? Don’t let this opportunity to make a difference pass you by.

Local folks: pick up your shoebox at Portage Alliance Church, Pet Valu, Portage Supermarket, Sobeys, Co-op, Heritage Books, Only Deals, or Dollarama. Follow the instructions and return it to Portage Alliance Church the week of November 19-25. You can find lots of helpful ideas for what to pack in the brochure and on their website: www.samaritanspurse.org

 

As for my little play, as far as I know it has yet to hit the stage. But the folks at Samaritan’s Purse liked the script and happily received it. Maybe one day it, too, will find its way into the right hands.

And maybe in our shoebox packing, both givers and receivers will begin to understand anew what the first Christmas was all about: “I am receiving a gift and I haven’t done anything for it!”