Family Missions in a Box
How do we teach our children to enjoy giving away toys? How to we encourage generosity in our homes? How do we move ourselves and our families to look beyond ourselves and our families and see the needs of the nations? How do we become Great Commandment families that love God and love people and Great Commission families that live the mission of bringing the Gospel to all peoples?
Well, it can be as simple as getting a few empty shoeboxes.
Samaritan's Purse has a ministry called, Operation Christmas Child. They invite families to participate every year by filling up a shoebox with school supplies, toys, hygiene items, and other gifts, and then sending them to a child in need.
"Since 1993, Samaritan’s Purse has collected and delivered more than 124 million shoebox gifts to children in more than 150 countries and territories through Operation Christmas Child" (samaritanspurse.org).
One thing I love about this ministry is that it is gospel-centered. The ministry doesn't just focus on bringing boxes of toys and supplies to those in physical need, it speaks to the spiritual need, highlighting an evangelism and discipleship ministry made available to each child.
My family is hosting a missionary family this week, and our kids were able to all get together and put together some shoeboxes for this exciting ministry.
Here are the 5 steps it took us to enjoy this family mission:
(1) Find some empty shoeboxes. We actually went into a shoe store and asked for some boxes and they were happy to help:
(2) Buy some items for the shoebox. Our wives took the kids to the dollar store and let them each pick out a box-worth of supplies. I love this because it gets the kids involved, cultivates generosity, gets them excited about giving away toys and loving others, and it allows the box to reflect their personalities.
(3) Wrap the shoeboxes. You can wrap the boxes with wrapping paper, as long as you do the lid separately so they can open the box without unwrapping it. Our boys used Jake the Pirate wrapping paper and our girls used Sofia the First wrapping paper.
(4) Fill the boxes.
(5) Print off labels from the Operation Christmas Child website. They suggest a $7 donation for each label, which helps pay for shipping. The labels allow you to specify if its for a boy or girl and the age its for, while also allowing you to track the shoebox online and see where it ends up. You can get the labels here.
There are many drop-off locations, which can be found here.
Afterwards, I suggest showing your family some of the videos of kids receiving the boxes, reminding us that this small act of love will prove to be a blessing to the nations.
