Rengesuul Yobech sat in the shade of a spacious open-air gymnasium at Peleliu Elementary School in Palau on a sweltering late-February afternoon earlier in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. The school’s 76 students were assembled there, eager to receive gift-filled shoeboxes at the first Operation Christmas Child festive outreach event to take…
Operation Christmas Child
Operation Christmas Child Is Bringing the Hope of the Gospel to 1,000 Pacific Islands
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
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
Family & Children’s Resources
Family and Children's Resources Our collection of child-friendly resources can help your church, group, or family catch the vision for packing shoebox gifts for boys and girls in need around the world. Be sure to check out all of the fun options! Featured Resource Lola's Lion :60 Second Trailer Lola, a lonely little girl living in…
Operation Christmas Child
Bringing Hearts to Christ in Cambodia
Hands clasped, heads bowed, children whisper their first words to the Creator they’ve just learned about. This moment of solemn surrender happens at tens of thousands of Operation Christmas Child outreach events across the globe each year. Watching one such prayer in his home country of Cambodia was especially meaningful to a boy named Samay*.…
Operation Christmas Child
A Sign of God’s Love
The Gospel message wasn’t clear to Zahira until it was presented to her in her own language—a dialect of sign language the Cuban girl uses in the Dominican Republic. At age 14 she was invited to an Operation Christmas Child outreach event led by a local church that has a ministry to the Deaf community.…
Health & Medical Ministries
Boy Finds a Best Friend in Jesus
Nico was diagnosed with a heart defect as an infant in Bolivia. By age 8, he was experiencing fatigue, a loss of appetite, and shortness of breath. That made it harder for him to concentrate on his homework or participate in physical education with his friends. “I always felt tired when I was at school,”…
New Hearts, New Purpose in Mongolia
At first glance, Erdembayar seems like an ordinary 12-year-old boy. He enjoys participating in physical education class at school with his friends as well as riding horses and cooking Korean food, fried rice, and cakes. But up until three years ago, he didn’t have energy for any of these things. For years previously, Erdembayar had…
Operation Christmas Child
The Life-Changing Power of Prayer in Cambodia
As smiling volunteers place red-and-green shoeboxes into the waiting, outstretched hands of children who have no concept of a gift or the love of Christ, a man wearing a shirt bearing the logo of Operation Christmas Child quietly watches with a look of reflection on his face. “Each time it captures my heart when I…
