BY JEFFRY AND DIANE MICHEL
Trinity Baptist Church
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS—A gift-filled shoebox creates a smile on the faces of poor children in other countries worldwide.
The children’s Sunday School classes at Trinity Baptist Church packed 200 shoeboxes during their one-hour classes on Sunday, October 22.
Operation Christmas Child allows people through Samaritan’s Purse to send these shoeboxes to over 100 countries annually during the third week of November.
The 17th annual event at Trinity Baptist started with prayer. Forty boys and girls participated in an assembly line to pack the gift boxes. Adults behind the tables lined with hundreds of items helped to place them in the cardboard containers.
Coloring books, beach balls, homemade wooden cars, crocheted hats, school items in hand-sewn material pencil cases, and notebooks were only a few of the items that made their way into the boxes.
Each of the packers had a favorite item in the box. One girl liked the T-shirts the best. Another girl liked the crocheted hats. One boy liked the storybook. Another boy liked the beanie hats. One girl said she “loved everything.”
Each child packed five boxes. They laughed and chattered and showed a lot of excitement. The adults enjoyed their jobs, too.
When the children overseas receive their shoeboxes, “The Greatest Gift of All” booklet is placed on the top of each box. The colorful booklet in the child’s language explains the Gospel about Jesus.
A Christmas card is placed in each shoebox with an email address. It is always exciting to receive a reply and sometimes even a photo. In recent years, replies have come from Angola, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and Mexico.
Children and adults on both sides of the ocean love these shoeboxes.
There is still time to pack a shoebox if you are interested. Free shoeboxes can be found at Johnny’s Barbecue Restaurant in Keystone Heights. National Collection Week is Nov. 13-20 at Trinity Baptist Church from 10:00 AM-3:00 PM—direct questions to Diane Michel at 352-283-4761.
