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Celebrating
Christmas, Advent
Class seeks
to answer the question: What is God doing?
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Small gifts sent to poor children across the world |
Organizers of Operation Christmas
Child continue their ministry around the world |
By Schellene Clendenin, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Schellene at sclendenin@eaglenewspapers.com |
The letter came from a
little girl in India, about 6 or 7 years old. It included a picture
of the brown-haired, brown-eyed child living in an orphanage.
It simply said, “Thank you,” to Tamara Brand and her three children
for sending a box of school supplies, a stuffed animal, some hygiene
items, small toys and hard candies.
Brand also included $5 in the box to help pay for shipping.
Almost 200 boxes were collected at two local churches — 115 at
Newberg Friends — as part of Operation Christmas Child, a project of
Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief mission that provided
gift boxes to more than 6.6 million children in 95 countries in
2003.
At Open Bible 65 kids from the school produced 70 boxes and took
them to be combined with hundreds of similar boxes at Rolling Hills
Church in Stafford, said Pastor Jim Ringseth of Open Bible. Ringseth
said Open Bible Christian School gets mailings every year from
Samaritan’s Purse and this year teachers invited students to
participate.
Brand, once the local contact person for people who wanted to
deliver shoeboxes full of small gifts to children internationally,
said that this year she collected only for her church, Newberg
Friends.
“We focus on school supplies because in a lot of countries children
can’t go to school without their own supplies,” she said. The boxes,
constructed each year in time for Christmas, are wrapped in brightly
colored paper, like a Christmas gift, she said.
Contents are brightly colored, too, “because many of these kids
live in war zone or a garbage dump,” she said. They can include
hygiene items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, washcloths,
crayons, pens, paper, something to snuggle such as Teddy bears,
small toys like yo-yos, cars, balls, hard candies, T-shirts, socks
and picture books.
Brand said boxes may not include war-related toys. Nor can they
contain used items, liquid soaps, perishable foods, medicines or
breakable items. Boxes for boys ages 10-14 are the most needed.
Brand became involved five years ago to honor her mother, Margeret
Jansen. Jansen, a long time Operation Christmas Child supporter, was
in the hospital with cancer, and her family wanted to get her a gift
for her birthday. They thought, what better gift than to collect 56
boxes, one for each year of her life, and give them to needy
children? They collected more than 400 in Jensen’s name.
Brand begins finding items for the boxes in September, when she is
buying school supplies for her children. “If I see a good deal, I
throw it in a basket in my sewing room,” she said. |
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From
Dec. 17,
2005, Newberg Graphic
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