Operation Christmas Child

For many years our church has participated in a ministry called Operation Christmas Child. This ministry provides shoe boxes filled with small toys and personal items along with a story of Jesus to children around the world that otherwise would not receive anything for Christmas. Payten's children's group this year decided to host a packing party at the church for everyone to join together and pack these presents for the children. Payten and I found many things we donated and also asked grandma if she had anything she would like to donate. Once at the packing party Payten packed four different boxes for four different children. One for a 5 year old girl, one for a 15 year old boy, one for a 14 year old girl and a last one for a 2 year old girl. After packing each box we sat down and wrote a letter to the child describing herself and what she liked and what her family was like. We put our address on the letter so that if they wanted to they could write us. The experience was amazing and it felt good to know we were helping someone else. As we do not have a lot of money we were thrilled to be able to contribute without breaking the bank. We look forward to participating in the ministry for years to come and next year hope to be able to give more then we did this year.

 Here she is picking out toys for her 14 year old girl. they could pick one bigger toy and two small toys along with a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, washcloth, Kleenex, stuffed animal, small notebook, pencil, crayons or colored pencils, gloves, hair ties and a small bag of candy.

 Here Payten is writing her letter to her 14 year old girl. She wrote her name, what she liked to do, what country, state and city she lived in, her favorite color, food and drink, who was I her family and what pets she had and her address in case they wanted to write her.

 Here she is writing her letter to her 2 year old girl. as you can see her box was full.

This was the last box she did. It was for the two year old girl. In this box was all the usual things she put in all her boxes but also a ball and a baby doll which she was so excited to put in there.