Maryland Church Ministers Through Shoe Boxes
Posted by Terry White on November 18, 2006
The Grace Brethren Church in Owings, Maryland (Robert Wagner, pastor) is one of many churches participating in the shoe box ministry of Operation Christmas Child this year.
The following is an edited excerpt from an Annapolis, MD, newspaper article which appeared this weekend. To read the entire article click here.
County church women have found the best way to recycle shoe boxes: Pack them with toys and candies and send them off to children throughout the world.
This isn’t a project they’ve undertaken on their own. It’s a worldwide effort known as Operation Christmas Child that began in 1993 with the objective of bringing gifts to children in impoverished countries. It’s an operation of Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief organization. Last year the shoe boxes reached 7.6 million children in 95 countries, according to the agency’s statistics.
Locally, the collections are under way at Chesapeake Christian Fellowship, 377 W. Central Ave., Davidsonville, where two tractor-trailers sit ready to be packed.
“We’re hoping to fill each trailer and call for a third,” said Becky Minemier, a member of the Davidsonville church and chairman of the local operation.
She estimates that each trailer will hold about 4,000 boxes. All week long, pickup trucks, station wagons and SUVs have arrived at the church filled with the carefully and lovingly packaged shoe boxes. The trucks will leave Tuesday, but until then, they stand ready for loading.
Donna Leadmon, who lives in Davidsonville but attends Grace Brethren Church in Owings, needed two station wagons to deliver the load from her church to the Davidsonville site.
“I was praying for 50 boxes and we ended up with 126,” she said. “You can never underestimate the power of the Lord.”
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