A Family Focused on Operation Christmas Child
While many families are focused on football and pumpkins this fall, one Pataskala family has already set their sights on Christmas.
ColumbusLocalNews.com, an online service of a group of suburban newspapers in the Columbus, Ohio, area, reports on a family that is enthusiastically participating in Operation Christmas Child.
Lael Hutcheson coordinates a Columbus area drop-off point for Operation Christmas Child. Her husband, Jeff, and two children, Caelen (11) and Christen (14), join her in packing shoe box gifts leading up to the November 15-22 collection week.
Christen has already knitted 100 yarn hats for the shoe box gifts—and she has no plan to stop soon.
“I like seeing how happy it makes the kids when they receive the shoe box,” said Christen, who gathers with her family annually to watch videos of children receiving the gifts. “The shoe boxes make the kids know that people actually care about them.”
Besides teaching a lesson in giving to their children, Lael and Jeff see Operation Christmas Child as an opportunity for their family to become a “missionary in a box,” impacting a child and another family thousands of miles away.
The project has also built strong ties among members of New Song Community Church, as the Hutchesons and other families work to collect 3,000 shoe boxes, a number that has grown exponentially since the church began participating in OCC several years ago.
“What seems like such a little thing to do is actually impacting so many lives,” Lael said. “This is what really motivates our church and community to collect 3,000 shoe box gifts.”
(Source: Samaritan’s Purse)
