Went to pick up the official Operation Christmas Child (OCC) materials tonight at Morningstar Christian Fellowship – as far as I know, they’ve been an official collections centre for a number of years and have very dedicated helpers year over year. These helpers are completely volunteers and praise the Lord that they help so much in providing for this ministry!
Some interesting facts about OCC that I picked up tonight:
- There were roughtly 17 Million 7.6 Million (see comment clarification – still a lot of shoeboxes!)shoeboxes delivered last year
- The group of 10-14 Boys were the most neglected group in the OCC ministry (hopefully, we can do a much better job this year in shoebox distribution) – a lot of them would like a Teddy Bear (surprisingly) based on surveys done
- OCC has an unofficial motto “One Shoebox, One Child, One Time” – this means that places receiving the shoxboxes are not repeated, and a child does not receive a shoebox year after year. The main reason this is done is beacuse OCC does not want to detriment the local economy by providing goods normally sold locally. And of course, the world is large and we want to spread the gospel more evenly around the globe.
- Despite instructions about what items CAN and CAN NOT be put in the shoebox, over the years, there have been some strage items such as “a piece of cooked chicken” and “unusual underwear” – thats pretty funny!
And now, some pictures to share!
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- Members from other churches listening to the presentation!
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- Very organized!
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- Dedicated volunteers for OCC
Just to set the record straight, Samaritan’s Purse received 7.6 million boxes last year and hopes to top the 8 million mark this year. Since the program got started in 1993, 61 million shoeboxes have been delivered.