First Baptist Church of Natchitoches had a large group of 30 people from seven different churches to work at the Dallas Processing Center for Operation Christmas Child for 10 hours this week. Lots of very good shoe boxes were processed from Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Arkansas and Louisiana that any child would love to receive.
Each shoebox was processed by following several steps: removing shipping money and placed in locked box, removing inappropriate items (candy, liquids, and toothpaste), removing labels and placed at the END of each shoebox (due to taping shoebox complete shut around the middle of each box), scanning the Follow the Box Label, categorizing and packing shoeboxes according to sex and age, and Praying for each shoebox.
The Processing Center opened Nov. 21 and will stay open until Dec. 18. The Center processes shoeboxes six days a week for 12 hours daily. By Nov. 7, 634,320 shoeboxes had been processed this season at this center. Dallas Processing Center’s goal is to process one million shoe boxes this year. There are eight processing centers in the United States.
The shoeboxes were being sent to Ecuador, Uganda, Ghana, and Chile during the time we were processing. Many of these children have NEVER received a gift and have never heard the Gospel. The Gospel is shared at each distribution, each child receives a book with the Gospel in their language, and each child is invited to attend The Greatest Journey, which is 12 lessons about the Gospel. Millions of children come to know Jesus as their personal Savior, many families learn about Jesus, and many churches are formed because of this ministry.
It is never too early to begin packing shoeboxes for 2022. You can pack shoeboxes as an individual or with your churches, business, groups, organizations, Sorority or Fraternities, friends, and families. For more information Samaritan, call Pansy Morgan, Area Coordinator, for West Central La team, at 352-6233 or Brenda Ingram, Logistics Coordinator at 461-9415.
