Sunday, October 3, 2010

Operation Christmas Child.

Today, at church, we kicked off Operation Christmas Child.
Last year was the first year we (Alan and I) participated...and let's just say, I loved it!
To get me even more excited about it this year we had the opportunity
to hear a girl give her testimony
about receiving an OCC shoe box when she was in 7th grade.
She is from the country of Belarus. She is 26 years old and now lives in
South Carolina with her husband. She travels around Georgia and South Carolina
telling her story of how OCC changed her life.


 Jamie Hardenbrook, who is the Regional Director for OCC in Atlanta, also spoke.
Here are some statistics he shared tonight. (I wrote them down.) :)
Since 1993, 77 million boxes have been given to children all over the world.
Shoeboxes have been sent to 135 countries.
8.1 million boxes were sent out in 2009 (worldwide).
There are 1.6 BILLION children in the world right now under the age of 14!
From the last statistic you can see that there are many more children to be reached.


So, our coordinator, at our church, is challenging each family in our church to make
ONE more shoebox than they did last year!
We have a church wide goal of 2000 boxes this year!


I have NO CLUE how many people even read my blog...
from the followers on the right, I know there are at least 27 of you, plus my Mom. :)
I want to encourage each of you to make ONE more box than you made last year.
Our church is the drop-off location in Warner Robins.
If you have boxes you want me to drop off, I would love to do it for you!
Collection week is November 15-22.
For more information you can visit the OCC website.

Let's help spread the gospel throughout the world one child at a time!

5 comments:

Roxanne said...

Could you post the list of items allowed in the boxes? We used to do OCC thru SBC, but we no longer put them together. Is there still a cost to ship the boxes?

Lori said...

Hollie,
We also make boxes every year for OCC - except we do one for us - my hubs and I - then each of our kids does one for his or her age group. Just another idea for those woth families. I love your challenge!
Lori

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for your work for Operation Christmas Child. I'm an Area Coordinator for OCC in Northwestern PA and had the chance to go to the Dominican Republic to help distribute boxes in 2009. There are so many children WAITING to receive a simple gift and hear about God's love. EVERY box means one more child who won't have to wait. If you want to check out my blog (our area did a packing party last week and did 12,670 boxes in 6 hours) you can stop by at www.occnwpa.blogspot.com

Kathy said...

Thanks so much for your work for Operation Christmas Child. I'm an Area Coordinator for OCC in Northwestern PA and had the chance to go to the Dominican Republic to help distribute boxes in 2009. There are so many children WAITING to receive a simple gift and hear about God's love. EVERY box means one more child who won't have to wait. If you want to check out my blog (our area did a packing party last week and did 12,670 boxes in 6 hours) you can stop by at www.occnwpa.blogspot.com

Sarah said...

I love OCC...I've done it every year since high school & it is such a rewarding gesture. So great that you got to hear a testimony of someone who benefited from something that seems so simple.

I love that you can now track your boxes to see where they end up. Last year my & Chris' boxes made it all the way to Greece.