It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

No, it's not really looking like Christmas here. It definitely doesn't feel like Christmas. It's a couple hundred degrees everyday and I haven't seen a flake of snow. However, a few weeks ago we got to do a very Christmas-y thing, Operation Christmas Child (OCC). OCC is a program that Samaritan's Purse has been doing for years and years. If you are unfamiliar with it you can check it out here. Basically, people from countries like the USA pack up shoe boxes full of stuff and they are given out as Christmas presents to kids in poor countries. Usually this is accompanied with the story of the first Christmas when Jesus was born and condensed summary of what Christianity is and isn't. 

Anyway, I had the opportunity to go out on one of the OCC distributions. It was fun and chaotic and very interesting. It seemed as if every kid in town heard about the gifts even though we didn't even announce we were coming. Once they saw all the white people word spread and before we knew it there were hundreds and hundreds of kids wanting to get a shoe box.

As a side note, this wasn't an early 2013 distribution this was a very late 2012 distribution. 

When we first got to town we walked around with a welcome group. They were elders in the town and they wanted to show us respect and thankfulness by giving us a tour. Incidentally, one of the stops they were mourning the passing of a family member. At another stop one of our team members had her flip flops taken. She left them at the door on the way in and they were not there on the way out. That poor family was so embarrassed.  

As we went around town we had quite a following of kids and curious onlookers. These are some of the kids that followed us around at a safe distance while we were given our tour. On the rooftop the adults can't chase you away.

We made it to the church. The courtyard of the church is where we distributed the shoe boxes. 

A church member is carrying a box of shoe boxes into the church courtyard.

After all the boxes made it inside they had to pick out the kids that would receive a box. Even though we had about 200 boxes, there were way more than 200 kids there. Probably like 400 kids. They tried to get one box per family at least.  It seemed as if the whole thing could descend into chaos at any moment. The kids out numbered adults by probably 10 to 1. Keeping order was very difficult.

If you didn't get picked you found a spot on the wall and waited for an opportunity to jump over and maybe get mixed up with the chosen ones.  You can see the one guard with a millet stalk in his hand. 

What do you do when you get a box? Put it on your head and walk home.

This dude was super happy. Maybe because he got two boxes.

After receiving a box, leaving the church was a bit tricky for the kids. Once out the gates they had to  avoid the hundreds of other kids trying to get their hands on a box or two.
Here is grandma with her stick protecting her grand kids from possible thieves.
Best t-shirt of the day TURN UP THE BASS!

It was a bit of a weird experience. Towards the very end, when there were clearly only two or three boxes left, some of the few parents there decided to fight it out for the remainder. It was a bit of a scrum and one or two of the boxes were torn open. But it was sorted out in short order. If you calculated the cost of the items in some of the boxes, the books, markers, toothpaste, candy, and toys, they would total about a week's salary for one of their parents. Even though Mcdonalds toys and stickers may seem like land fill material in America, it all has quite a bit of value here. I think that is why it seemed like black Friday towards the end.

Once the final shoe boxes were given out, the big empty cardboard boxes that the shoe boxes came in were given out. The people that received those big empty boxes were just as happy as the ones that received the shoe boxes full of stuff.

It would have been nice if more of the parents had come with the kids to the distribution, but perhaps the parents were working or taking care of the younger children. And it's kind of a counter cultural thing to give out presents to kids of all ages and genders. Here, if there is something new in the family it usually goes to the oldest male child. So, the boxes may get taken by the oldest male child of the family before they even reach the home even if the box was for a girl aged 2-4. That's just how it is.

It didn't go perfectly, and it did not meet my expectations, but I learned many things from that day. I just hope that the kids had some fun and will enjoy the gifts and that they will realize why they were given the boxes of gifts.

 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  James 1:17