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This year, for the first time, Bethel served as a regional drop-off center for "Operation Christmas Child."  A ministry of Samaritan's Purse, Operation Christmas Child sends shoeboxes filled with toys, books, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to children in need all over the world. To find out more about this amazing ministry, or about Samaritans Purse, please visit their website by clicking here.

We collected and processed just over 1,500 shoeboxes, 220 of which came from Bethel attendees.  We also had over 60 Bethel attendees volunteer.

Through Operation Christmas Child, God amazingly uses simple shoe boxes to affect lives all over the world. 

 Here are just a few real life stories…

  • We met a little boy, born in Russia, who had come to the U.S. to be adopted. He wanted to fill a box and drop it off himself, hoping it would go to another little boy who would love all the boy things he had packed. Before he left his mom bought him his first English Bible.
  •  A pastor from India came to see our relay center. He wanted to see where shoe boxes start their trip. Normally he’s at the other end delivering boxes to children in his local town. What an experience for him to see all the cartons we had stacked up.
  • We were open for 28 hours over 8 days, staffed by 60 of our incredible volunteers.
  • More than 20 churches dropped their boxes at Bethel.
  • On our last day, as we entered the final hours, we needed 21 more boxes to reach our 1,500 goal. We received 32!  And 6 of those came right at noon as the truck was packed and ready to go.
  • In the U.S. a total of 5,198,657 shoe boxes were collected, with 8,157,904 shoe boxes worldwide! All we can say is PRAISE THE LORD!!!!

And now we’ll begin preparing for 2010 collection week November 15th to 22rd because there are so many more little lives out there still to be reached with the hope of Jesus.

As you view the pictures below, please pray for the children who received these boxes.