Operation Christmas Child

This year we decided to do something that we plan on making a yearly tradition. Every year, Samaritan's Purse does something called Operation Christmas Child (you can click here to learn more about it or find out how you can participate). Basically, the idea is that you pack a shoe box or small plastic bin with items to be sent to a needy child somewhere around the world. You can choose a boy or girl and a specific age range when packing your box. This is especially great if you have kids because you can simply have them shop as if they are shopping for themselves. In our case, we packed a box for a girl in the 2-4 age range and a boy in the 5-9 age range. This past Saturday we took the kids shopping to pick out items for the boxes. Even though we had explained to the kids why we were shopping, I wasn't really sure if the kids would understand that they were picking things out for other children or not. However, they did really great. We purchased things like toothbrushes, toothpaste, socks, toys, cards, crayons, coloring books, watches, puzzles, bubbles, and suckers. Here are our boxes all packed and ready to go...

National collection week this year is November 14-21, so this morning we headed to our local drop-off location. Parker first thought that we were taking the box to "him", what he calls the little boy his box is going to, so I had to let him know that we were just taking the box to the people who would deliver it. He was so excited to carry the box inside.

Even though she understood less than Parker, Sadie was also excited.

The ladies at the drop-off location were genuinely excited to see us walking in and were all too happy to give the kiddos cookies, magnets, and stickers that said "I gave a shoe box". They were even able to let us know that our boxes were either going to Mexico or Haiti!

It great to know that we can do something so simple that makes such a difference for someone else's child. And what better way to teach our own children that we should look for ways to give to others. Can't wait until next year!