“The kid that’s receiving this gift, that was us twenty years ago … We were kids in a country that was going through war. We received it, and it truly did mean a lot to us,” says Lina, an Operation Christmas Child volunteer.
In Part 3 of our Helping Hands documentary about Operation Christmas Child – an international gift giving initiative of Samaritan’s Purse – we meet Lina and Larsa, childhood friends from war-torn Iraq who now call Australia home.
As children, their lives were changed when they each received a shoebox gift through Operation Christmas Child. With a smile, both admit that although many years have passed and their childhood home is now thousands of kilometres away, they’ve both held onto items they received in their shoeboxes.
They are very simple items, and they may not mean anything to others,” shares Larsa, “but to me, at that point, they were a ray of hope.”
Remembering the love, joy and gratitude they felt as children, they now give their time as volunteers to pack and prepare shoebox gifts for children around the world.
The box Lina is packing is for a boy aged five to nine-years-old.
“There’s so much cool stuff in this. It’s going to a child who will be very, very happy. A child that knows that there’s someone out there that loves them,” she says, trying to hold back tears.
The gifts Lina and Larsa process at Operation Christmas Child’s western Sydney warehouse are a small but extraordinarily significant part of a world-wide initiative to see children understand their value and worth through the receipt of a shoebox gift.
More than 11 million boxes will be collected this season from locations around the world, are carefully packaged into cartons and labelled for accurate tracking to be transported to one of one hundred and seventy destinations. Then, the international Samaritan's Purse network, which has connected in advance with local pastors and community leaders, delivers the precious cargo into the hands of children, including those living in some of the world's most remote and dangerous places.
Each Operation Christmas Child shoebox is so much more than the contents it holds, says Dave Wu, Queensland Regional Ministry Leader. It has incredible potential to be a catalyst for transformation. Not only are the lives of children, their families and communities transformed around the world, but also the hearts of everyday Australians – who discover their own purpose by partnering in the work of Operation Christmas Child.
Dave ‘s role at Samaritan’s Purse has seen him travel to shoebox destinations to see the amazing impact a gift can make.
“By giving an Operation Christmas Child shoebox – it’s opening many doors … (It) equips churches to connect with their local communities ... If we pack 5,000 shoeboxes in a session … we remind them (volunteers) that’s 5,000 children that will receive those gifts … The reality is – we just don’t know exactly what that box will mean to a person that receives it. It’s far greater than just giving gifts.”
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