Even though we're just a few days away from Christmas, you and/or your kids can still help pack a shoe box online to make a lasting impact on the life of a child. Operation Christmas Child has created a program called Build-A-Box, where, through their website, you can digitally pack a shoe box for a boy or girl by selecting gifts from their list of items, and even include a personal letter and photo of yourself or your child. (This is a huge hit for the children who receive the shoebox so they can learn about where it came from and who sent it to them.)
You can start building your box at Operation Christmas Child's website or by clicking the image above.
Mike and I packed a box for a little girl aged 2-4. (Something I learned on my trip was that there are always a LOT of boxes for kids ages 5-9, but there's not nearly as many for the other age groups.) In the box I packed online, I choose a stuffed animal, a slinky (I had taken slinky's with me to the Dominican and handed them out - the kids LOVED them!) a jump rope, a harmonica, an etch-a-sketch, sunglasses, and hair accessories. Automatically included in the shoe box are essentials like soap, wash cloth, toothbrush & toothpaste, hair brush, pencils, pencil sharpener, crayons, chalk, coloring pad, and a notebook.
After I chose what to put in the box, I uploaded a photo of Mike and I, wrote a note to the child who will get the shoe box, and then checked out.
For $30, Mike and I know that we'll have given a child, where in many cases is in a third world country where a toothbrush & toothpaste, a stuffed animal and sunglasses, would never be obtainable to them, a chance to be a child. More importantly, we're helping share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and bless kiddos throughout the world through Operation Christmas Child.
When we have children of our own someday, in addition to physically packing shoeboxes as a family, I can't think of a better way to share Christ's love on Christmas than to pack a shoe box online for a child.
When looking back at my days in the D.R., I'd have to pick Thursday as the most memorable.
Thursday morning started like the others with breakfast, worship and devotions, and then we loaded the buses for our distributions. Our group went to a small church, Iglesia de Dios Misionera La Gran Comision Tercera, in the community of Mata Godo. We drove through the city and then into the country to get to there. Once we arrived and pulled alongside the barbed wire fence surrounding the church, the director of the church, Filomena, came running towards our bus full of energy, obviously very excited! This distribution was one of the smaller ones (only 150 kiddos) so we were able to interact with more of the kids in the community.
As we walked towards the church, we found all of the kids quietly waiting on the benches inside the church - some of them peeking out the window to look at us.
The same events took place as the first two distributions: the local OCC Volunteers lead a great presentation for the kids including singing "Jingle Bells."
After the presentation and signing, it was time to hand out the shoeboxes. We all grabbed boxes and started distributing them to the kids. This is when I learned one of my best lessons about packing a shoe box: I was handing out two boxes - one was cardboard and one was plastic. I handed the cardboard box to a little girl and as I was getting ready to hand the plastic one to the girl next to her, the first little girl dropped the cardboard box and grabbed the plastic. The kids LOVE the plastic shoeboxes because they can be reused later. Mental note made!
As the kids started to open their shoeboxes, the skies let loose and the rain started to come down. Some of the kids didn't mind - they were too excited about their shoebox. But some of the other kids scattered - some inside the church - some inside the school bus next to the church - some ran down the street. One little girl just stood next to me like she was lost. She couldn't have been more than 2 years old. That's when I remembered that I had some pillow case dresses in my backpack made by some of the ladies at my church, so I grabbed one and gave it to her. With the language barrier, she wasn't sure what I was giving her, so I slipped the dress on over what she was already wearing. It was perfect!
One thing that surprised me when handing out the dresses was that I didn't give them to just little girls like I thought I was going to. I gave 2 of the dresses to 2 of the moms in the community. They were so small that they could wear the pillow case dresses as tops for themselves.
Normally after our distributions are complete and we've had a chance to interact with the kids, we loaded the buses and headed to the next location. But not this time, and that's why this distribution was my favorite. Our bus had to leave to take someone to a bus stop, so we ended up being at our distribution site much longer than any of the others. This is when I met the little girl I wanted to bring home with me. She had the biggest eyes and biggest eye lashes!
I started playing with her, tickling her neck, smiling at her, and lifting her up in the air, and she was smiling and laughing! After playing with her for a little while, through the help of a translator, her mom told me that I was one of the only people who was able to make her laugh and smile like that in the 1 year that she had been alive. She told me that her little girl loved me! Cue the tears! I couldn't imagine a little girl, who was 1 year old, barely laughing and smiling. It broke my heart. It let me know how different our worlds really were.
I was also able to teach a little boy how to play knuckles. (When you bump fists, and then your fist explodes and goes "BOOM!") After a few short times of repeating the action, the little boy caught on and eventually started yelling "BOOM!" at the end with a giant smile. It made my heart happy that I could make him so happy with such a simple game.
Right before we left the community, our translators started playing a few magic tricks with the kids and before long, a group of kids had gathered around them. After the magic tricks were done, they started singing and dancing with the kids.
The kids were having a great time not because we just brought them shoeboxes, but because we were spending time with them singing, dancing, laughing, playing games, giving them hugs, and paying attention to them. We were showing them God's love. It made me want to put them all on the bus and plane and bring them home with me.
This year at work I participated in the "Secret Santa" program. I've never done one before, so I was pretty excited. I have to say, I learned a lot from the person who was my Secret Santa. She was on top of it! From all the little greetings throughout December to the gifts she gave me right before Christmas, she was amazing! I just recieved my final gift from her and it brought tears to my eyes.
The gift? A necklace with a pendant that has Nashville, TN on it and a second pendant of a compass. Around the ring of the compass, this saying is printed: "There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going."
Attached to the gift was a note that read:
"Bethany, I hope you enjoy the necklace! I thought keeping your dream close to your heart would be a nice reminder that maybe one day it will come true."
Thank you, Chelsey. This necklace means more to me than you could ever imagine. Thank you!
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!" - Luke 2:8-14
I know I've written about my love for Tennessee. There's something that I just cannot put into words about the state. I don't know how else to describe it: I love Tennessee.
Since Mike and I weren't able to travel to NYC this past November like we had originally planned, we decided to take a vacation closer to home that we could drive to. A friend of mine who lives in TN had invited Mike and I down to stay with her for a weekend, so we finally took her up on the offer this past weekend. I'm so glad we were able to make 5 hour trip south. We had such a great time and can't wait to go back again. (I'm secretly wishing that someday we can just MOVE there!)
Friday night after we arrived in Nashville we went to get appetizers with Meredith and her friend. When we got downtown, we were surprised to find the Nashville Christmas Race and Parade. It was quite comical watching all of the runners in their various Christmas decorated outfits. We saw many reindeer, elves, and Santa's running the race. We also saw a Firehouse running, which was neat, but the best was a family dressed up as Mary & Joseph. (Sorry, no pictures. We didn't take the camera with us that night!)
After appetizers we headed to the Skillet / tobyMac concert. (One of Mike and I's favorite bands is Skillet.) We had a GREAT time and probably one of the best concerts we've seen (behind Jeremy Camp in October!) Skillet's lead singer surprised everyone and played a hymn on his acoustic guitar and then tobyMac busted out some Christmas songs! There was a point in the concert when Toby came out into the audience to sing, and sure enough, he climbed into the stands right next to us!! That was GREAT!
We ducked out of the concert a little early and headed to the Flying Saucer to meet up with some of Meredith's co-workers and a new band her label was signing. (For my beer loving friends, you would LOVE that place. They had over 200 different styles of beer there!)
Saturday morning we had two different options for "Nashville" type breakfasts: The Pancake Pantry and Loveless Cafe. My only question was which one had grits? All I wanted was real southern grits! We choose Loveless and man, oh, man am I glad we went there!!! BEST grits and biscuits I've ever had! I'm not sure I can go back to Cracker Barrel now and enjoy grits there - it just won't measure up to Loveless' grits :-)
After entering our carbs coma from all of the biscuits, we headed towards Arrington Vineyards, which was founded by Kix Brooks (of the former "Brooks & Dunn fame.) On our way, we drove past the Nachez Trace Parkway Bridge. Beautiful and BIG!!!!
At Arrington, we were able to enjoy the beautiful Tennessee scenery (and do a little wine tasting, too!)
Our last big "tourist" visit I wanted to do on this trip was to visit the Opryland Hotel. I'm sure you all heard that with the floods Nashville received this past Spring, the Hotel was shut down for 6 months due to flood damage. The Hotel had only reopened 3 weeks ago, so I really wanted to go see it. Meredith had also told us about the Christmas lights, so I wanted to see that too!
We had a great time walking around inside the Hotel. I never realized how GINOURMOUS that place is! You could spend an entire day just walking around inside. Now I understand why so many Senior Citizen groups take bus trips there ;-)
Saturday night ended with the 3 of us (Meredith, Mike, and myself) eating pizza and watching the movie "Elf" back at her condo. What a great ending to a great day!
On Sunday, we went to church with Meredith before heading back to Indiana. Now for us who don't live in the "Bible Belt" going to church on Sunday normally doesn't involve that much traffic. NOT IN NASHVILLE!!! We had to sit in traffic, just like a week day to get to church! WOW!!!! The best part of going to church? Mike and I actually got to worship TOGETHER! Normally when we're home, Mike is up on the platform playing guitar and singing, so it's a rarity that we get to worship together. I LOVE it when we can worship together. Those are always special moments for me.
While it wasn't quite Christmas Day when we were in Tennessee, we saw the beauty that God has created in the Tennessee landscape, we saw it snow in Nashville (gasp!), saw Mary & Joseph carrying baby Jesus (albeit they were running in a race...) worshipped the birth of Jesus, and spent some quality time with a great friend, I'll say that's as close as we're going to get to a "tender Tennessee Christmas" until we move there someday.
Thanks Meredith for a great weekend! We can't wait to see you again. And all those plans we made for 3 years down the road? MARK YOUR CALENDAR, GIRL! :-)
