Samaritan’s Purse’s Operation Christmas Child will deliver its 200 millionth shoebox filled this season to a child in Ukraine after nearly three decades of partnering with churches to deliver Christmas gifts and the Gospel to over 170 countries.
The Christian missionary program, which partners with churches throughout the U.S., Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and South Korea to deliver shoeboxes filled with toys, school supplies and hygiene items for children in countries suffering from war, disease, poverty and disaster, expects to deliver the milestone gift-filled shoebox shortly after Christmas to Ukraine.
In December, the 200 millionth shoebox will be packed and hand-delivered to a Ukrainian child impacted by war by former Ukrainian shoebox recipient Elizabeth Groff. Groff, now 28 and living in Texas, once received a shoebox at an orphanage in eastern Ukraine when she was 11. Even after being adopted by an American family and attending Virginia Tech University, Groff still remembers the yellow yo-yo inside.
“It may seem small, but it is powerful when delivered with a message of love and hope! It changed my life,” Groff said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. “Eighteen years ago, a shoebox gift opened my heart to God’s Word and now I have the opportunity to personally demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to a Ukrainian child. We serve a faithful God! Being able to pack and deliver this special shoebox gift will be a highlight of my Christmas season!”
Edward Graham, the vice president of operations at Samaritan’s Purse, son of Franklin Graham, and grandson of Billy Graham, told The Christian Post that Samaritan’s Purse has served in Ukraine since 1996. Since the Russian invasion began in February, the Evangelical aid charity has operated food and medication efforts in the war-torn country.
Operation Christmas Child has volunteers and staff teach a presentation on the Gospel to church partners that is then shared in the children’s native language with each delivery. Operation Christmas Child began when Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham and president of Samaritan’s Purse, was asked to give presents to children in need during the Bosnian War.
“We collected about 11,000 shoeboxes that first year, and this year we are preparing to collect our 200 millionth shoebox,” Graham said in a statement. “We couldn’t do this project without the churches and the hundreds of thousands of incredible volunteers who are involved across the country and around the world.”
According to Graham, around 80,000 volunteers a year in the U.S. help process the shoeboxes for the Operation Christmas Child program. The program also has around 15,000 people run and collect the boxes, as well as recruit church partners.
Graham said a few years ago, his father was visiting a Mexican village on the mountaintops that had never heard the Gospel. A disabled pastor had been ministering in the area for six years, and after leading a woman in the community to the Lord, the woman wanted the rest of her village to know Christ.
“And he’s like, ‘I got an idea.’ So he did Operation Christmas Child Distribution there, and he led about 20 kids to Christ,” Graham said. “And then the kids led their parents to Christ.”
“The goal is to reach the realm of the Gospel, so those that have never had a chance or no way would ever hear the Gospel get to hear it in their language,” he said. “And we’re going to take as many, as much as we can, as much as God entrusts to us. These are God’s resources. They’re His gifts. And we just need to be aggressive and go to places where no one else will go.”