Operation Christmas Child

In the middle of all the bad news out there, of crime and scandal, of greed and violence, a light shined brightly last night. A group of 5th & 6th graders (Club 56) piled into the church vans and drove to a "dollar store" in Ventura where they spent the evening shopping. Each student had $15 to spend to fill a shoe-box for for a poor child in a third-world, developing country. They were supposed to get back to the church around 8pm to wrap uptheir boxes, but they arrived late, because their leader, Sandi Prather, told me they were having "way too much fun shopping for 'their' kids." It was a magic moment when the evening and the money was not about them, about what they could 'get' but what they could give away in Jesus' name. I snapped the picture of the few who were still around. Look at their faces and the joy. All worth it!