Operation Christmas Child

Empty and ready to be filled

This year is my second year as the Girls in Action (GA) director at my church.  I blogged about how I came to this position here and it has been a blessing.  I spent last year finding my way around and getting a feel of how/what God wanted for our group.  This past summer I feel as though the Lord put some things on my heart as to what direction he wanted us to go and I am trying my best to follow.  This year I implemented a few new things which have proved to be very beneficial.  I implemented a few new communication tools, our girls are learning 26 bible verses with our A-Z bible verse ring, and our girls are doing more hands-on mission work.

Full boxes

One such mission project is the Samaritan's Purse project, Operation Christmas Child.  Our church participates in this and how it works is you fill a shoe box with age appropriate items for a boy or girl, wrap it, and turn it in to the church.  The church then sends it to the Samaritan's Purse headquarters and these shoe boxes are shipped all over the world.  They are blessings to thousands of children.  Most families in our church participate in this ministry and this year I wanted our GA girls to actually be in charge of packing at least one box.  So, one Sunday afternoon we loaded them up on the church mini bus (yes, I drive it) and made our way to a local store.  Each girl had the chance to pack two boxes completely by themselves.  They loved this!  Of course, there were guidelines as to what is appropriate and not appropriate but the girls had the freedom to put whatever they thought "their" kid would like in the shoe box.  This was such a good experience for the girls to pack gifts for someone they had never met.  I hope to make this an annual event with the GA girls.