The Calvary Church in San Mateo announced that they would be holding an OCC Packing Party on Sunday, Oct. 17, after church service.
OCC Packing Party at Calvary Church
As per the church’s events page, everyone is invited to participate in the OCC Packing Party after church services on Sunday. The event will start from 2:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon.
Details on the post said that the packed boxes would travel across the globe to bless children. The event is one of two packing parties that the church organizes every year. These packing parties are in preparation for the National Collection Week this coming Nov. 15 to 22.
Operation Chrismas Child (OCC)
On their website, it is mentioned that Operation Christmas Child aims to show God's love to children in need worldwide in a concrete way. Samaritan's Purse collaborates with local churches around the globe to share the Good News of Jesus Christ and create disciples of all nations through this initiative.
The page recounted that in the summer of 1993, President Franklin Graham of Samaritan's Purse got a call from a man in England who asked whether he'd be interested in filling up shoeboxes with gifts for kids in Bosnia. Franklin accepted but believed that Christmas was still a long way off. He forgot about the commitment until almost Thanksgiving when he got a call inquiring about the gifts.
Franklin contacted his friend, the late Pastor Ross Rhoads of Charlotte's Calvary Church, to see whether he might assist, as per the same page. Pastor Rhoads showed his church how to pack a shoebox with essential presents and prompted them to include a letter to the kid the following Sunday. Within weeks, the church's corridors were lined with 11,000 shoe boxes.
In addition, the page said that Samaritan's Purse donated 28,000 shoebox presents to children in the Balkans that Christmas, thanks to their donations and additional items from Canada. Since then, Samaritan's Purse has gathered shoebox presents for children worldwide, including toys, school supplies, and hygiene necessities.
Moreover, more than 188 million children in over 170 nations and territories have received a shoebox from Operation Christmas Child since 1993, as per the same page. The endeavor provides the delight of receiving their first present and a physical manifestation of God's love for many children.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of individuals from local churches all over the world join us to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ at festive outreach activities where youngsters are astonished by shoebox gifts, the page revealed.
The post also mentioned that over 1.3 million participants from these churches had been trained to teach The Greatest Journey, the organization's innovative follow-up discipleship program for shoebox beneficiaries, by Samaritan's Purse. 26.5 million youngsters have participated in this 12-lesson initiative since 2009, learning how to follow Christ and share Him with everyone.
As per the same post, over 12.5 million of these boys and girls chose to embrace Jesus as their Savior during the training. Many people are now praying for their loved ones and sharing their beliefs with them. New churches are being planted as a result of this ever-expanding experience, and societies are being transformed!
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