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Christmas Shoebox Celebration
As the embers were still dying from this year’s bonfires, Watton Pentecostal Church turned their thoughts to Christmas as they held a poignant service last Sunday November 6 th in aid of the Samaritan’s Purse initiative, Operation Christmas Child.
Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian relief organisation which works through local churches, and provides aid to families and children in poverty across Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. Operation Christmas Child began in 1990, and each year asks people to donate shoeboxes filled with gifts and presents which will be delivered directly into the hands of children in some of the toughest parts of the world.
The church filled to a buoyant atmosphere as a pile of festively-wrapped shoeboxes climbed the wall behind the lectern. Dozens of children, many of whom had contributed, flitted excitedly around the staging area, in awe of the growing tower of gifts. Such a neat stack of presents served to remind why shoeboxes are requested; their uniform size and shape makes them much easier to pack and to ship. Indeed, the very reason they are collected in early November, is to ensure that there is time for them to travel from the UK to the far reaches of the world.
This family orientated service likened the journey of the shoeboxes, to the journey undertaken by the three wise men as they delivered gifts to Jesus, also an under-privileged child, some two thousand years ago. While children giggled at three church members who acted out a silly sketch portraying the wise men, the serious side to the comparison was brought clearly into focus by those leading prayers. The wise men delivered very precious and expensive gifts of the time to a child born into poverty, in gold frankincense and myrrh. The presents taken to children by Samaritan’s Purse, from teddy bears and dolls, to simple items like hats and gloves or toothbrushes, are highly precious to the families and children who suffer poverty today; things they could never hope to have otherwise.
A moving video was played as part of the service, which showed the shoeboxes being given out to children in previous years. The sheer joy etched onto the faces of these children as they stared in wonder and amazement at the presents inside their shoebox in disbelief, left barely a dry eye in the church. And as the service closed with prayers, the impact that each and every shoebox has, and the difference it makes to a single child, made everyone look at that pile of shoeboxes again; and realise just how precious they are.
The congregation left in triumphant mood, savouring the unknown joy that the shoebox each of them packed will bring to an unknown child this Christmas. At the last count 68 shoeboxes had been collected at Watton Pentecostal Church. Last year Samaritan’s Purse sent 1.2 million boxes in total to different countries around the world, and hope to increase the number this year. The 68 from the Sunday morning service will be somewhere among them, completing their arduous journey from a Watton church into the hands of a child.
FINAL TOTAL 72 SHOE BOXES
FINAL FINAL TOTAL 73 SHOE BOXES
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