My Thought on OCC Volunteering

Recently, my church youth group traveled to one of Operation Christmas Child’s shoebox packing facilities, where we volunteered to work SIX HOURS packaging shoeboxes. If you could guess, I wasn’t too ecstatic. But, I do like to help people, so I signed up.

After we arrived, we ate a quick dinner and headed straight for the packing facility. We were tired and slightly cranky from the long drive. We were briefed on what we were going to do, but when the time came for us to start working, there wasn’t a table available. We waited for an hour before one of the volunteers finally split us up. Our leaders went one way, and, chaperoned by our trustworthy (ehhhh…) oldest member, we went another. 

We arrived at a table, where there were three other volunteers. The process was simple. Different volunteers checked the shoeboxes and made sure they were full, taped them shut, etc.

In addition, we were packing Special Access shoeboxes, which go to countries where the Bible may not be allowed, so there were additional items that were not allowed. We worked almost every minute of our five hours, only stopping for a 30-minute snack break. It was fun! I got to meet new people, grow closer to the people in my youth group, and we packed over a thousand shoeboxes!

It was also so inspiring to know what we were doing was going to help kids in other countries. We would open boxes and find little letters the kids who had packed the shoeboxes wrote, or we would find things like hammers and tape measurers. Our oldest member said that it was so great to think that these would be things the kids might actually use to help others in their communities. 

If you have time this holiday season, please consider volunteering or packing a shoebox. Your efforts will be so appreciated, and the snowball effect may be greater than you think. One child may accept Jesus, then tell other children, who tell their parents, who tell their friends. Churches have been built all over the world and people who normally hated each other have connected.

And all it takes is a shoebox full of gifts for one child.

P.S. Next week, I will be posting character reference sheets for a Hobbit fanfic I will be posting right here on this site!

God Bless!

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