ABC of OCC - O




Children in Crimea receiving shoeboxes this week.
Photo: David Lund 

  O is for Operation Christmas Child - very suitable as this is my last post before Christmas! It has been a tough campaign this year for our volunteers. The dreadful weather has caused many problems - vans getting stuck in the snow, cold conditions in the warehouses and the delay of trucks. One team in the South had their truck cancelled four times! When you have your head down boxes, arranging transport doing all the paperwork it is easy to forget exactly WHY you are doing it.

Perhaps everyone has a different response to that question. Some do it as a demonstration of their faith, some like the company and friendly atmosphere and others just like messing about with roller trucks! But at the heart of this is the totally unselfish need that people have to help others - of showing God's love in a practical way.

So what is the impact of Operation Christmas Child? CNN recently published story about sixteen-year-old Valery Bianco and his 13-year-old sister Marina Bianco who know firsthand what shoeboxes could mean to a child. "I was almost 10 when I received my shoe box, and it was touching to receive a gift as an orphan, someone people don't care about," Valery says.
Those shoe boxes were the first gifts that Valery and Marina received during their life at a Russian orphanage. When they were sent to the orphanage years earlier, they were not allowed to bring any possessions with them. Birthdays were not celebrated and there were no toys to be found on Christmas morning. All the two siblings had was each other."I would see him fight with other boys and I would run into my room and hope he was OK. There were so many fights," Marina said.

For Marina, the shoebox came when she needed it the most. She was 6 years old when it arrived. At that point, she was becoming very angry, finding herself in a lot of fights as well, she started believing that she had nothing to fight for. "I did not care what happened to me," Marina said. "People would want to beat up on me. I thought, well that is what life is. But when I received the shoebox, I realized that someone did care for me in the world, and I thought that I should live a good life."

Her shoebox had the simplest items: A small towel, a few toiletries, a colouring book and stickers and a cuddly toy. For Marina, these possessions meant she was worth something. "I realized you can be anyone you want, that you can control your own life," Marina said.

They have now been adopted and live in the USA and are making shoeboxes themselves for others. For the full story see http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/12/17/iyw.shoebox.gift/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Happy Christmas everyone.