I love Christmas - everything about it at our house.
Starting the day after Thanksgiving I'll be having lots of posts about Christmas, but I need to post this one now. God's blessed me with lots of opportunities to teach my sons about Himself, and Christmas celebrations have been one of those ways.
God loved us so much that He gave Himself, His son, Jesus. He left His rightful place in glory to come to earth and take on human limitations, to go to the cross and suffer and die in our place. He shows us a lifestyle of giving.
So one of the things we've always done at Christmas is giving.
I want to share about two of our favorite ways to give for Christmas; Operation Christmas Child through Samaritans Purse, and purchasing a special Christmas gift through World Vision. Both of these are opportunities to give that basically need to happen in November, so that the recipients can enjoy the gifts for Christmas.
This short video does a great job at explaining all about Operation Christmas Child. Basically you just fill a shoebox with all manner of wonderful things to send to a child in a developing country for Christmas. Since I have 3 sons we've always packed a box for a boy. Some years we've done 1 box, and other years we've done 3. We've had lots of fun packing toys, hard candies, and helpful items such as shoes and grooming items into the box. I'd wanted to find this one video to post here that I saw this year where a woman is remembering when she was a child and received a box; how she didn't have decent shoes and was embarrassed to go to school, how she was so blessed when she received her box that had shoes in it-I cried when I saw that video (much to the amusement of my 6'3", 230lb, 16-yr old son).
As I've mentioned before, I really appreciate World Vision. I think it's cool how they set up the Christmas gifts. You get to buy practical things for people; you check out this site to see what I'm talking about. I remember one year we gave a music program since my sons were into music, another year we figured it would be fun to give a goat and some chickens. It's really neat because WV sets it up so you can see how whatever you pick will be useful for the people to whom it's given.
What about you, what are some experiences you've had with Operation Shoe Box, World Vision, or some other giving opportunity at Christmas?
7 comments:
Giving is a BIG part of our Christmas. We sometimes, buy for a family in need or we do several operation Christmas children. This year we are likely going to take another family in need and do for them.
Blessings, andrea
We give gifts because that part of Xmas was co-opted from Pagan religions.
Either way, usually around this time my local grocery store does a box meal that you can pay for at the counter during checkout that will go towards the needy. They continue to do this all through the rest of this month and into January. I never fail to get one when I'm there.
Both the 2 year old and the teenager are doing a box this year...a great teaching point opportunity.
Look forward to reading the Christmas posts!
We adopt a family during Christmas and purchase gifts for them. It's a wonderful feeling knowing that we can help make someone's holiday a little better!
Our neighborhood usually gets together and buy gifts and food for the people in our little community that are less fortunate or down on their luck.
Giving with love from your heart is the best gift you could ever give to someone, specially the ones who are in need. Our church put stuff in boxes, too to be given to those kids in need. Blessings to you.
It's so cool for me to read all the ways God's placed it on your hearts (or just your human generosity GCT) to give to others. Makes me happy just reading these notes.
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