fab five friday, shoe box style.

5 reasons why you should do a shoe box...

this weeks fab five is more of a visual list. five years ago i was privileged to be chosen to fly down to costa rica for 2 weeks with samaritans purse's 'operation christmas child' to deliver shoe boxes to kids filled with toys. this is a project i'm sure many of you have heard of if not participated in by putting a shoe box filled with toys together.

it was a trip that has changed my perspective of christmas forever. the trip was in the first couple of week of december. it wasn't until coming home that i was really struck by what i had seen. i had just been in a country where children had never been given gifts before and were overjoyed when given a simple gift such as a pencil. upon returning home to canada i was bombarded by christmas commercials on tv and mall santas where children would line up for hours to tell santa the long list of expensive gifts that they expect him to bring on christmas morning.

as cliche as this is going to sound, we truly are blessed to live in a country where our basic needs are met no matter what. however, as far as the true meaning of christmas, the real meaning of giving, i'm not so convinced that most north americans have got that going for them.

here are a few pictures from my trip to costa rica... just a few of the reasons why you should do a shoe box (there are more then 5 pictures, so this week it can be called fab six friday)!

this is the little girl that i gave the shoe box that i packed and brought down to. i got to sit with her and open her gifts. the coolest experience ever!

this was at a local community center where many of these kids walked hours when they heard we were coming with christmas presents.

many of the kids that would receive a box would often open all the little toys in the box and play with them. when finished playing they would re-wrap all their little toys. when i asked a local pastor why so many of the kids did this he told me it is they could take the gifts home to their siblings to open so they too could receive and share in the experience of opening christmas presents!

at the different places we distributed the boxes we would often play games, paint faces and give out balloon animals. we also had a chance to give each child a picture book of the christmas story.

collection week is going on as we speak until november 22. there are a ton of places all over the city (no matter what city you live in) to drop off your boxes at. if you visit the below link you are able to search by your postal code where a drop off centre is. if you live in calgary you are also able to volunteer your time at the head office to sort through each box to make sure that all gifts are appropriate!

so get packing people... there are lots of kids out there that will love your gifts!

samaritan's purse website: http://www.samaritanspurse.ca/OCC/Default.aspx