Their days often start early and end late, but when you’re doing what you love, the busy days don’t really seem like work at all. “This brings us joy every day. We give every day to God, every part of this ministry,” said Barbara Korn, who is part of the dynamic duo known as “The…
Operation Christmas Child
Lighting His Way to Jesus
Kululu Atsiaya often felt forgotten, especially at Christmas. He knew his family loved him, but life was hard for the boy growing up in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. He had heard stories of people receiving gifts, but he had never experienced it or known anyone who had. Most families in his neighborhood struggled to…
Operation Christmas Child
God Is at Work in Benin’s Furthest Reaches
In the early morning the long wooden boats motored gently across Nokoue Lake, past the small craft propelled by colorful sails, past the fishermen tending and mending large traps, toward the water dwellings of Ganvie. Secured in the wooden craft were hundreds of Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts destined for an outreach event at a…
Operation Christmas Child
God Uses Shoebox Gifts to Grow a Church in Cambodia
Gift-filled shoeboxes are packed for children, but they influence entire families and communities. They even help start and grow churches, like Seed of Faith in Cambodia. When their Pastor Ponleu* got involved with Samaritan’s Purse and hosted Operation Christmas Child outreach events, the Good News of Jesus Christ began changing the boys and girls who…
Operation Christmas Child
Packing a Shoebox Will ‘Make Your Heart Feel Good’
Retirement eagerly waited to welcome Sallie Simmons. She’d soon turn 65 and all the years of hard work would be behind her. Yet, one day, Sallie had an encounter with God that changed the direction of her life. “I was on my way home, driving a brand-new car. But I thought, ‘I’m not doing what…
Operation Christmas Child
Edward Graham Joins Celebration for New Church in the Mountains of Mexico
La Laguna village in remote Mexico, home to the Nahuatl people, was once unreached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No one in the mountain community had ever heard the name of Jesus. No one had ever been told that God loves them or how they could have a personal relationship with the Living Savior.…
Operation Christmas Child
Faith on the Mountaintop
Pastor Rick and his team knew it would be tough—physically and spiritually—to reach the remote village they had been lifting up in prayer. To share the Good News of Jesus Christ there, the group had to scale steep mountains, cross rivers full of rocks and stones, and push through dense bamboo and vegetation. Their journey…
Operation Christmas Child
From Wyoming to the World with Love
Jana Ginter lives on the southeastern plains of Wyoming, 30 miles east of Cheyenne, a place where golden wheat fields stretch in almost every direction to the far distant horizon and where acres of sunflowers glow in the late-summer sun. Here, “next-door” neighbors live several miles apart, separated by spacious farms and cattle ranches, most…
Operation Christmas Child
Thanking God for New Believers in Remote Madagascar
Ambodibibaka is so remote you can’t even find it on most maps. The village is nestled in the forests of eastern Madagascar where its residents long held to ancestral worship and traditions—until Samaritan’s Purse teams recently brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to children and their families. Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts opened the door…
Operation Christmas Child
A Kazakh Church in Mongolia Reaches Children with Shoebox Gifts
Nalaikh, Mongolia, is home to 40,000 people in the winter, but only around 30,000 each summer as herders head out to the countryside to care for their animals. A district of Ulaanbaatar located about an hour from the capital city center, Nalaikh has two mosques and 15 churches. However, only one of them is focused…
