Operation Christmas Child - Craft Night

Samaritan's Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan's Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God's love through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Operation Christmas Child, the world's largest Christmas project, brings joy and hope to needy children around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes and the Good News of God's love. Since 1993, more than 86 million shoe box gifts have been delivered to children in more than 130 countries.

A lovely lady from my church was led to coordinate a special craft night to make skirts to put in our Operation Christmas Child gift boxes. We all met at our church, some of us with our sewing machines, some who had no sewing experience at all but were there with willing hearts and hands, ready to serve in whatever way they could. We were a busy group, sewing, ironing, threading elastic and clipping strings... What a huge blessing it was to serve alongside all these wonderful ladies and see the fruit of our labor: by the end of the evening (which was shorter than expected because things went so smoothly) we had made 35 skirts that were paired with brand new shirts and hair clips. It is amazing to think about the thirty-five little girls all over the world that will be receiving new outfits this Christmas. Our hope is that these girls will feel the love of Jesus Christ when they get these gift boxes packed with love from us.
In few weeks our church will be having an Operation Christmas Child event and our children will be learning about OCC and what they do, they'll get to do crafts and write letters to the kids who will be receiving the boxes and of course the kids will get to help stuff the boxes as well. It is going to be a very special event and hopefully we'll be able to use it to teach our children how blessed we are here in America and how to be a cheerful giver and share the love of Jesus with other children across the globe in such a tangible way.

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan's Purse. You and your kids or friends can pack a shoe box for a child and share the love of Jesus Christ. National Collection Week is November 14-21, 2011. Visit their Web site to learn more about how you can change a child's life through a simple shoe box gift. To participate, order free materials by visiting www.samaritanspurse.org/occ or calling 1-800-353-5949.