Many Alabama Baptist associations and churches contribute to the Operation Christmas Child (OCC) shoe box project each year, but two groups ramped theirs up to new levels in 2012.
On Dec. 3, about 50 members of Salem-Troy Baptist Association churches took a “one-day missions trip” to Atlanta. All shoe boxes collected for OCC in the continental United States are processed at six locations to ensure their contents are appropriate and will survive travel to their destinations. Every box must be opened and examined before it can be sent.
Kenneth Baggett, director of missions for Salem-Troy Association, said their volunteers processed about 2,000 boxes in the four hours they worked that day. The work was meaningful, he said. Periodically the organization also would call a halt to the work for all the volunteers to pray over their shoe boxes.
“I’d hold a box to my heart and pray for the child, the family that was getting that box,” said Mandy Norman, wife of Dwayne Norman, pastor of Bush Memorial Baptist Church, Troy.
Isney Baptist Church, Silas, in Choctaw Baptist Association also got the opportunity to pray over what was a particularly large pile of boxes for them — a pile they had been collecting all year.
“An article in a prior issue of The Alabama Baptist was written about a group who took on Operation Christmas Child this year as a year-round project,” said church member Helen Spears. “The WMU ladies of Isney Baptist Church decided to make this our mission.” The church met its goal of 100 boxes — a big jump from the 28–30 boxes it usually prepares. “What a joy,” Spears said.
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