Lakeside to coordinate Christmas Child shoe box giving

Submitted by Canton1 on

Operation Christmas Child, the world’s largest Christmas project of its kind, has announced plans for the annual collection of gift-filled shoeboxes. 

More than 10 million boxes will be collected worldwide this year.  Lakeside Baptist Church, 1291 Old Kaufman Rd., will serve as the Relay Center for this area with Donna Rakestraw as the relay center coordinator.  

Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse, a non-denominational evangelical Christian international relief organization. 

OCC is more than filling a shoebox with gifts, according to information from the organization. “It is the beginning of a journey to provide the Word to children around the world.  A 12-week study, ‘The Greatest Journey,’ written in the child’s native language is offered to all shoebox recipients.  More than 2 million children participate in the study annually with more than half graduating and thousands of decisions recorded.  Where allowed, Bibles are presented to the graduates.”

Last year, 3,741 shoeboxes were received at the Lakeside Center. 

Those boxes went to Togo, Africa, Ghana, Peru, Latvia, Niger and others countries. 

The goal for 2015 is 4,000 boxes, OCC officials said.

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