Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Wayne Boydstun has been involved with Operation Christmas Child for 17 years.
Q: What does Parkland Baptist have going on this time of year?
A: Operation Christmas Child is kind of our big push. It always reminds us it's almost Thanksgiving and Christmas is right around the corner. Operation Christmas Child is kind of what we do. Our main mission project.
We also do Thanksgiving boxes. We try to put together about 30 for families, military and local. And so those are kind of our two big projects.
As far as Christmas and worship goes, every year I do a series of messages leading up to Christmas, and just celebrating -- you know, what Christmas is really all about, and just talking about the birth of Christ: What it means to us how significant that birth actually is.
Q: The Operation Christmas Child, that's the shoe box donations. For people that don't have any idea what that is, can you explain the mission?
A: Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan's Purse.
Samaritan's Purse is an international relief organization, headed up by Franklin Graham. It is a very well known missions organization. This is a big part of what they do. And I've been a part of it for about 17 years now.
What we do is we just take an ordinary shoe box. We (those who donate) fill it with items that a kid would like for Christmas. Pretty simple, pretty basic.
Folks bring them to us, we forward them on to the processing centers where they go through and make sure everything can go overseas. And then they will do distributions over the next several months in several countries.
Q: And this helps spread the message of Jesus?
A: Basically the shoebox gift is a tangible way to show children all over the world that God loves them. And it's a way that we introduce them to who Jesus Christ is.
And so when they get a shoebox, a local church group in whatever country they go to will hand them out. Just like we collect them here, they hand them out there.
Each box is just as we make them here. And then they add a little booklet to them that has the story of who Jesus is and introduces them to Christ. If any children choose to follow Jesus, then there's a discipleship program that they will follow up with later. That's about 12 weeks long.
And they have people who are trained to lead it and teach it, and just help the kids understand a little bit more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
So the shoebox is basically a gift. But the greatest part of the box is the message of who Jesus is.
Q: Give us an idea of how many boxes were donated last year?
A: Last year, I think a little over 9 million shoe boxes were collected in the United States. Samaritan's Purse and Operation Christmas Child are celebrating their 30th year doing this ministry. And they celebrated by collecting and giving out the 200 millionth shoebox.
Q: And how many do you all collect here in Clovis?
A: Last year, we did just a little under 300 as a church.
And we are a drop off for our area. So there are churches, businesses, organizations and individuals who will bring us their shoe boxes. We have shipping cartons where we box them up, and then we will load them up Monday and I will deliver them to Amarillo on Monday afternoon to our collection center.
We load them on freight trailers, and then they go to the processing center in Dallas. Last year we collected right at 2,500 for our area.
Q: Do you anticipate that number growing this year?
A: It will. I'm very, very, very sure that we will top that number. Everybody that has been donating and giving -- churches, individuals, groups -- everybody has increased the number of shoe boxes this year. \
Everybody's numbers are up. And so I am really hoping and praying that we get about 3,000 in this area this year.
Q: And area residents still have time to donate?
A: It ends on Monday. We will close down our dropoff at noon. Monday morning we'll be loading the truck. About noon we will leave for Amarillo. If there are a few that come in late, we do take a team to the processing center in Dallas the week of Dec. 4. And I can take shoe boxes with me. So if we do have any come in late, we still have a way to get in there.
Q: For those previously unaware of this ministry, how can they still participate?
A: Probably the easiest way for folks that have not been involved in the ministry before is to go on Samaritan's Purse website. (Samaritanspurse.org) All the information they need will be on that website.
On that website, they can print the labels, they can get all the information they need of what can and cannot go in the shoe boxes. And they will get a label that they can put on designating whether it's a boy or a girl or what age group that they want to give to.
And they can contact us here at the church. I have everything they would need here on campus at 921 Parkland Drive. (Phone: 575-762-1779)
We do it year round. I'm what they call a year-round, volunteer or connect volunteer. But in our church, we start collecting in January again. And we will collect all year long, different items each month.
- Compiled by Landry Sena, the Staff of The News
