© 2008 Dixie Lee Baptist Church

Roger Hazel - May 2008

14650 Old Stage Road        865-986-8801

Architect's drawing of new worship center

Operation Christmas Child

This year, Dixie Lee Baptist Church will again participate in Operation Christmas Child, which gives you the opportunity to share Christ with a needy child using a simple shoe box. These shoe boxes will reach a child in a troubled country like Afghanistan or El Salvador with the Gospel message. For many of these children, the shoe box gift will be the only Christmas gift they have ever received.

Operation Christmas Child sends a message of hope to children in desperate situations around the world through gift-filled shoe boxes and Christian literature. This program provides an opportunity for individuals of all ages to be involved in a simple, hands-on missions project that reaches out to suffering children while focusing on the true meaning of Christmas – Jesus Christ, God's greatest gift. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has hand-delivered more than 24 million gift-filled shoe boxes to needy children in some 120 countries on six continents.

Preparing shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child is one of the most fulfilling and fun projects we get to participate in each year. Bible Study classes get together for food, fun, and fellowship to pack shoe boxes with small toys, necessity items, school supplies, candy, notes of encouragement, and other little gifts.

OCC Facts

If the 24 million children who have received Operation Christmas Child shoe box gifts since 1993 stood hand-in-hand, they would be part of a line that stretched nearly 16,600 miles—long enough to reach more than halfway around the world.

An estimated 384,000 rolls of wrapping paper will be used this year to wrap some 7 million shoe boxes. That's enough to cover 255 football fields!

Operation Christmas Child has generated about 1,136 miles of smiles since 1993—enough smiles to reach from New York City to Orlando.

In America, an estimated 4.2 million shoe box gifts will be donated, then processed by a projected 45,000 volunteers nationwide and sent on for hand-delivery to kids in need worldwide.