Operation Christmas Child

Last night we went to "Family Night" at Samaritan's Purse. For those who may not know Samaritan's Purse (SP) is a nonprofit organization run by Franklin Graham. They help with humanitarian relief after natural disasters, in impoverished regions, and are probably best known for the shoeboxes people pack and send out this time each year called "Operation Christmas Child." SP is based out of Boone, NC...kinda crazy, huh, that the "world headquarters" of this huge organization is in our little town. Anywho, Daphne used to work there and still has connections so she asked if we and the Rowan's wanted to go take a tour of the Operation Christmas Child facility in what they called "Family Night" and drop off our shoeboxes. We were all game so after some dinner at Chick-Fil-A we all headed over to take our tour.

After filling out some forms, we dropped off our shoeboxes before our group started the tour. Here is a picture of some of the shoeboxes that had already been collected. Since 1993, 69 million shoeboxes have been packed and delivered all over the world. Tough to wrap your brain around that one, huh?
We were waiting for our tour to start and I just couldn't help but get a picture of our munchkins!

This picture is blurry but priceless. You can see Drew with the double stroller and then the Rowans. What makes it priceless for me is that Jordan has Heath on his shoulders and is pushing a stroller while Drew has the double one. If there was ever any doubt, you can now be sure that they have both arrived at "dad" status. :)

We first had a "drama" that we all participated in that showed why shoeboxes are sent and the long process it takes to get them there. We also had a relay race involving replacing inappropriate things in shoeboxes, saw how a shoebox was inspected and sent, and then watched a little movie about a Panama Church and the children there. It was really neat to see what all goes into it and we hope it made it more real to the children. I also noticed that the shoeboxes dropped off yesterday and last night will be going to Ghana so we will be reading about children in that country in our "Children Just Like Me" book tomorrow. Now I need some sleep...