Local churches donate to Operation Christmas Child

ALAMOGORDO — Local churches have found a way to brighten Christmas for children in third world countries, thanks to the international Operation Christmas Child project.

Operation Christmas Child is annually hosted by Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization, which started the project in 1993.

Operation Christmas Child collects shoeboxes filled with school supplies, hygiene items, toys and notes of encouragement, and delivers them to children in need to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way.

"They asked us to put in one big item, so this year we did soccer balls, dolls and stuffed animals," said Alamogordo Team Coordinator Tiffaney Alfaro. "Then we put in smaller items like school supplies, coloring books, crayons, balls, necklaces – anything a kid would enjoy playing with." 

Shoeboxes are categorized by gender and in the age categories of 2-4, 5-9 or 10-14. Once collected at the local relay center, the shoeboxes make their way to one of the eight major processing centers around the United States then delivered internationally.

"It means so much to them to get school supplies," Grace Methodist Coordinator Jan Richardson said. "I personally met Louis Gonzales from Panama and he got a shoebox when he was six. He kept begging his mom that he wanted to go to school and she would say, 'No, I'm sorry but we don't have any money for school supplies but pray and ask God for school supplies.'" 

Richardson said Operation Christmas Child had a distribution center not far from Gonzales' home and he was invited to get a shoebox. Inside his shoebox were the school supplies he'd been praying for and then he was finally able to attend school. 

"Another girl was embarrassed to go to school because her shoes had already been taped together so much and she had holes," Richardson said. "When she outgrew her shoes, her family didn't have any money to buy new ones so they just kept taping her shoes. The day they gave out Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, they had to talk her into going because she was so embarrassed. What was in her box? A brand new pair of tennis shoes, just her size. God directs these boxes, he knows what each kid needs." 

Grace Baptist Church, home of the Alamogordo relay efforts, has been participating in Operation Christmas Child for over 10 years.

"Our church had been participating in Operation Christmas Child since before we took over operations as a drop-off location and our pastor (Joe Bryant) doing it for over 20 years," Alfaro said. "My prayer is that every box reaches a child and that there's something specifically in there that they need. It's really special and impactful when just a bar of soap or just the school supplies means something." 

Around Otero County, about seven churches worked together to reach their goal of about 1,000 shoeboxes to donate. Donations were taken Nov. 13 through Nov. 21 then the shoeboxes were transported to the next relay center in Las Cruces.

For more information, visit the Samaritan's Purse website at www.samaritanspurse.org.