10/4 for OCC at Global Connect

So what does 10-4 mean to you?  Well, if you were a trucker with a CB radio, the phrase means 'okay' or 'I hear you' but as Randy Riddle spoke to us this morning at the Global Connect conference for Operation Christmas Child, 10:4 took on a new meaning.

Randy explained to us this morning that the five year goal of OCC is to, by God's grace, provide by 2017--

10 million gospel opportunities (shoeboxes) sent around the world from the US
4 million children discipled every year by OCC-US

And why this 10:4 goal?  Because...
--there is urgency in the gospel
--billions of children are waiting
--God has blessed OCC as a way to usher children into His kingdom
--discipleship and multiplication are the mission fulfillment of OCC

The picture above is of sweet little girls waiting to receive OCC shoeboxes on my trip to the Dominican Republic in 2009.  The biggest thing I learned on that trip is how many are still waiting.  I remember the children who stood outside churches at distributions and peered in through the barred windows with their little hands wrapped around the bars.  When the gifts ran out, some of them were left waiting.

The OCC staff has been strategizing plans to increase the number of shoeboxes so that millions more children can receive a gospel opportunity and it was thrilling to hear Randy bring the structure of those plans to us today.

That 10:4 goal reminds me also of the 10/40 window--that area of the world where the most unreached people live.

Whatever longitude or latitude children live between, more of them are being born every day and they all need to hear about Jesus.

After hearing these goals and counting the cost, I'm ready to redouble my efforts and the efforts of my team to pray and plan and pack.

Hey, good buddies, are you with us?

And all the people said, "10-4"