BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Trinity Baptist Church hosted an Operation Christmas Child Full Circle Event on Friday, April 4. Cambodian native Lyda Giedd shared how the gift of a shoebox at age 12 impacted her life. Two area pastors also spoke at the event, describing how the evangelism program that ships millions of Christmas gift boxes around the world marked their congregations.
Operation Christmas Child is a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse. Since 1993, the effort has given shoe-box-sized Christmas gift boxes filled with toys, school supplies, and hygiene items to over 232 million children in 170 countries.
During Full Circle events, people who received a gift box as a child describe their experience and tell how they are now involved in giving back to the effort.
Like the fish and the loaves
Before Giedd described her experience with the ministry, Trinity Baptist’s Jeff Michel interviewed two local pastors about their experience with Operation Christmas Child.
Pastor Joel Weck of Waldo’s First Baptist Church told the audience he had only been at the church for eight months. He added that the Waldo congregation had participated in Operation Christmas Child since the ministry’s inception in the mid-1990s. The New York native said he has also participated in the program for around 30 years at various churches.
“But coming here to First Baptist Church of Waldo, one of the things that I love that they do at this church is it’s not a one-month or two-month thing,” he said, “because usually in the churches I’ve been in the past, it’s kind of like a race to get the boxes filled and we start thinking about it at Thanksgiving. This is an all-year thing at First Baptist Church of Waldo, and it’s really, really awesome the way that we prepare for that.”
Weck said that until last year, the church packed around 150 boxes for shipment to children worldwide. In 2023, the effort topped 300 boxes. He said one person suggested the congregation aim for 500 boxes in 2024.
“And I thought, I don’t know, 500, that’s a high number,” Weck recalled of his reaction to the ambitious goal. “And I prayed about it, and I kind of sensed from some other people I was talking to, I think God wants to do this in our church.”
Weck said that as the effort progressed, he was mystified by how many Christmas shoe boxes the church brought in.
“I didn’t know where they were all coming from, all these boxes coming in,” he said. “It was God…it was like the fish and the loaves. I mean, it just kept multiplying. And we finally got our last box in, and the grand total was 578 boxes.”
Weck told the audience that Americans undervalue the impact a shoebox filled with toys and supplies can have on a child in a foreign land.
“We live in a country where we have so much and children in this country, they have video games and phones and all this stuff,” he said. And it’s amazing with all this stuff that our kids have, and they say, ‘We’re so bored.’”
Weck then recalled a mission trip to the Dominican Republic, where he saw houses patched together with scrap material and children playing with a ripped, deflated soccer ball.
“And they had so much joy over that,” he said of the kids.
“It’s not about a box and stuff,” he said of the ministry. “It’s about the people. I want you to imagine that child, I want you to imagine that family when that box is opened up, and the joy that’s going to be on their faces and the gospel is going to be shared with every single one of these shoe boxes.”
Nilo Dominguez, who leads a Spanish-speaking congregation in Gainesville, said that Operation Christmas Child allows his entire congregation to participate in overseas evangelism rather than just a smaller group traveling to the mission field.
“This has allowed for a big part of our church to come together and work on something together,” he said through a translator. “We’ve had meetings where there’s been a little 1-year-old and then a 100-year-old man in the same meeting.”
The Cuban native added that one member of his congregation received a gift box in Mexico as a child.
“And she tells us about how God came to her through that,” he said.
Kidnapped by mother’s sister-in-law
Giedd told the audience she was born 10 years after Cambodia’s civil war, which led to the four-year reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a Chinese Communist Party-backed regime that killed around 1.5 million Cambodians.
She said that as a child, the social upheaval from the war and the communists’ rule was still evident.
“Back at that time, everyone was poor and brokenhearted, and life was very difficult for everyone,” she said.
Giedd said her impoverished single mother had to work virtually nonstop to support the family, resulting in the child being left home alone for extended periods.
“And one day, I was kidnapped by her sister-in-law, and I was sold to a brothel,” she remembered, “and I was four years old. I was so terrified, and I cried so hard that they tied me to a tree out from the house.”
Giedd, who now lives in Williamsburg, Virginia, said that as she cried while tied to the tree, a Cambodian Christian couple discovered her and rescued the four-year-old, returning the child to her mother.
“It’s a miracle,” she said of her rescue. “And I wish I knew who that couple was because they saved my life.”
Giedd said she does not remember the couple’s names or faces but does recall their message.
“All I could remember is that they said, ‘Little girl, we believe in Jesus, and we want to let you know that Jesus loves you, and we love you too.’ And I thought in my head, I have no idea who Jesus is. My mother was not Christian, and they disappeared.”
Gambler and womanizer
Giedd described her father as a gambler and womanizer who popped in and out of the home. She added that her mother was so angry about her home life that she set the house on fire. Although the structure survived, the family later found themselves homeless after the father lost the house gambling.
“And so, my pregnant mother, we had no place to live,” Giedd remembered. “We were homeless, we were hopeless and loveless. At four-and-a-half years old, I learned how to hate people, and I hated my own father. I wanted revenge.”
Giedd said it became apparent that her mother could not support and protect her, so she went to live with her mother’s brother.
Giedd said that even though her kindhearted uncle gave her the security and education her mother could not provide, she felt like an outsider and became a scapegoat whenever things went wrong.
She said that when she was 12, she and her cousins attended a church event where she received an Operation Christmas Child gift box.
“And I felt so excited as I was standing in that line,” she said. “I could not believe that I was going to receive my very first gift ever. For 12 years. I never received— I don’t remember that I ever had a toy of my own.”
She said the box contained a jump rope, which she had never seen before, personal hygiene products, and colored pencils, among other items. Her favorites were the pencils.
“It was so special to me because I loved to draw and color, and it was the only activity that I could do to comfort myself,” she said. “I missed my mom, and when I felt I needed comfort, drawing and coloring could comfort me.”
Life’s most important lesson
Giedd said the joy in receiving the gifts led her to think about the people who sent the presents.
“It was the moment that I realized that, ‘Oh, there’s someone that cares for me.’ And through the shoebox gift, it was the moment that I realized God was real because these people who loved God packed this shoebox for me, just for me.”
“I was amazed that someone who did not know me, lived across the world from me, would care enough to pack a shoe box just for me even though I was filled with so much pain,” she said. “But I can clearly see God’s hand as he was protecting me and caring for me.”
Giedd said that after receiving God’s forgiveness through the gospel, she struggled to forgive the man who caused her so much pain during her childhood.
“I learned the most important life lesson is to forgive those who hurt me just as Christ forgives my sin,” she said. “Talking about forgiving someone who hurt you or wronged you or embarrassed you, it’s hard, but that is what God did for us. He forgave us, and he asked us to do so to others.”
Giedd said that when she opened that shoe box at age 12, she never thought she would be in America packing shoe boxes for other children around the world. She added that every box she packs contains one essential item.
“I never forget to pack good quality colored pencils in each box that I pack because this reminds me that I just want to express my love to the child that I pack for,” she said. “And I have a personal life letter telling them that I was 12 years old, and I also received this shoe box, and this is what I received, so, I just hope you enjoy it and you’ll use it in a good way.”
