Samaritan’s Purse is once again sending over 9million shoebox gifts to thousands of churches around the world to give out to children in their local communities and take the opportunity to share the gospel with them.
Over 1,000 churches and many more families and individuals in the UK donated at least 250,000 shoeboxes to the Operation Christmas Child annual project. Additionally over 300 churches around the nation opened their doors as collection centres in November. The gifts are being sent to 2,355 churches in Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Central Asia, Liberia, Middle East, Moldova, Nigeria and Serbia. The largest consignment of ten containers (80,000 shoeboxes) was sent to 556 church partners in Liberia and the smallest shipment of one container to the Middle East will be distributed in refugee camps and among the persecuted Christian community.
According to a recent report from six ministry partners of various denominations in Ghana, Operation Christmas Child outreach events have led to the planting of 11 churches in a northern province between 2014 and 2021. These churches continue to thrive and have over 1,000 members between them (591 adults and 644 children). The newest of these is Guree Christ Frontiers Church which was founded in 2021, with just 30 members (12 adults and 18 children). It is the first Christian church in its community.