Operation Christmas Child (by Mrs. Fink)

Operation Christmas Child, a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse, has been a St. Paul’s tradition over the past 19 years.  The mission of Operation Christmas Child is to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to children in need around the world, and together with the local church worldwide, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

We have been hosting an annual Packing Party in the Event Center for the past 5 years.  This is a wonderful opportunity for our community to gather together to pack boxes for children all over the world. Our chapel offering for the 2nd quarter will be going to Operation Christmas Child to help with the cost of shipping the shoeboxes. 

Our Servant Leadership Team and National Junior Honor Society members will have the opportunity to serve at the Operation Christmas Child Processing Center on December 11th.  Before the millions of shoebox gifts collected each year can bring hope and joy to children around the world, each one has to be carefully inspected and made ready for international shipment by volunteers. Our Servant Leadership and National Junior Honor Society members will assist with this task during their time at the processing center.   

Last week we held our annual packing party on our campus.  We began the night with a spaghetti dinner served by the Elders of our Church.  The Event Center was busy with lots of families lovingly assembling the shoeboxes.  Evelyn Flores, a  volunteer at the Orange County processing center was our guest speaker.  She shared with us about the experience of delivering boxes to children in Kenya.  We finished the night with a special prayer led by Pastor Christenson as we laid hands on the bus that contained all the filled boxes.  

On Thursday, November 21st the Servant Leadership 8th graders delivered our boxes to the processing center.  This year we packed and delivered 1,226 boxes for children around the globe. The team had the honor to again pray over the boxes and for those children who will receive these gifts this Christmastime.  What an amazing effort by our St. Paul’s Community.