Perspective

Sometimes in the midst of all the details of my volunteer job with Operation Christmas Child I can lose perspective. As I pray for God to bless us with 32,011 shoebox gifts here in Northwestern PA, with 700,000 in the Mid-Atlantic region, with 5.8 million nationwide, and with 8.5 million worldwide the numbers all blur together in an overwhelming pile of boxes and cartons and trucks and sea containers.

The weeks become a tangle of packing party preparations and speaking engagements and phone calls to return and information to absorb and remember.

But as I sat on the floor today putting stacks of 8 crayons into individual bags I thought once more of this amazing truth: every crayon I touch will go into the hands of a child in another country who will be blessed by it.

This Operation Christmas Child project is vast but it's also vastly personal. Last year we prayed for a goal of 630,000 shoeboxes in the Mid-Atlantic region and God went way beyond our expectations and blessed us with 640,778.

It was neat this week when we heard that in Mexico last year 640,000 boxes were distributed and there were 334,000 recorded decisions made for Christ as a result of them. That's a huge number but each of those children is an individual who God knows and loves intimately. He knows the hopes and dreams and even the number of hairs on the head of each of those children.

I was reminded again today of an Operation Christmas Child motto--

ONE box=ONE child=ONE soul

One box makes a tremendous difference because it's one fewer child who's kept waiting to hear of God's love. So pack a box! If you're not sure how to do that, click here to learn how.

Pack with God's perspective.