Operation Christmas Child has been partnering with churches to deliver Christmas gifts and the Gospel for nearly three decades.
The Christian missionary program, run by Samaritan’s Purse, 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.
Since the organization’s founding by evangelist Franklin Graham in 1993, more than 198 million children in over 170 countries and territories have received an Operation Christmas Child shoebox. Last year, the program collected around 10 million shoeboxes in the U.S. and about a million from its affiliate groups.
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.
She said in a statement, “It may seem small, but it is powerful when delivered with a message of love and hope! It changed my life.”