Central Texas Christians give record amount to Operation Christmas Child_120604

Posted: 12/03/04

Central Texas Christians give record
amount to Operation Christmas Child

By Terri Jo Ryan

Special to the Baptist Standard

WACO–A record number of shoeboxes filled with small gifts were collected recently at Highland Baptist Church, the final stop in Central Texas for presents intended for Operation Christmas Child.

Ominous skies and a river of rainwater in the streets didn't stop the appointed rounds of the dozens of helpers gathering a mountain of brightly wrapped gifts–12,354 of them–for children on the other side of the globe.

Students, faculty and staff at Baylor University contributed almost 1,000 boxes at 12 campus drop-off locations this season for Operation Christmas Child, a 25-percent increase in the number of gifts gathered on campus in 2003, according to the university ministries office.

This leg of the journey for the Texas-sent presents, part of the international collection of gift boxes for needy youngsters for Operation Christmas Child, is by far the easiest, said area coordinator Marti Dietrick.

Samaritan's Purse, the Christian missionary organization behind Operation Christmas Child, employs a wide variety of means to get the goodie-laden shoeboxes into the hands of orphans and other poor children. Planes, trains, buses, helicopters, cargo ships, canoes, dog sleds, mules and even camels are used to transport the boxes to their intended recipients half a world away.

In 2000, Waco-area residents sent out 5,217 boxes for processing, more than double the 1999 total of 2,400, she said. The 2003 total was 11,123 boxes, down slightly from the 2002 total.

“We had gotten spoiled there because it kept doubling for a few years,” Dietrick said.

Dietrick and almost two-dozen helpers at Highland Baptist Church accepted packages from nine relay stations throughout Central Texas, cataloging where they came from. It is a popular project with Sunday schools, church youth groups and secular classrooms, she said.

Volunteers like the Hardeman sisters–Saralyn, 13, and Elizabeth, 14–packed them into the large cardboard cartons for shipment to one of six regional centers in the United States.

“Our mom volunteers for everything,” said Elizabeth, a ninth-grader at Texas Christian Academy. She and seventh-grader Saralyn already were on their Thanksgiving holiday from school, and used their break to help others. Their only “payment,” Saralyn said, was a T-shirt and free candy. But Elizabeth was quick to remind her sister their reward is a heavenly one.

“When we get tired, we just think about who will be getting these gifts on the other side,” said Elizabeth. “Somebody else's Christmas will be blessed by it.”

Boxes that arrived un-wrapped were given their holiday trappings by a team of volunteers, including Kay Dunham, 72, of Washington, Ill. She and her husband, Julius, 74, came specifically to Central Texas to work on Operation Christmas Child, she said. It's just a coincidence that they have a daughter, teacher Karla Morris of Woodway, to visit for Thanksgiving when this chore is through, she added.

“My fingers are nubs,” Kay Dunham said, about three hours into her eight-hour shift.

When Dietrick's own children –Nathaniel, 16; Rebecca, 12; and Ethan, 10–pack their shoeboxes, they include personal letters and pictures of themselves for the recipients. After Christmas 2001, they got “thank you” notes from the recipient in the Philippines, and the following year from a teenaged girl in Kosovo.

Dietrick said she first became involved in Operation Christmas Child 10 years ago by packing a single box. The next year, she encouraged her play group to do it, and by 1996, she was talking her church into taking on the leadership role in the community for the shoe box drive.

Although the shoe boxes laden with goodies are headed primarily to the children of the Third World–Asia, Africa, the Middle and Far East–some actually will be delivered a lot closer to home, Dietrick said.

Some Native American reservations in the West are on the list. Australia, another “sending country” like the United States, also keeps a portion for its indigenous population, aborigines, as well.

Calling itself the “world's largest children's Christmas project,” Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan's Purse, a nonprofit organization run by Franklin Graham.

Since 1993, more than 31 million shoeboxes valued at more than $610 million have been distributed to about 100 countries.