Making a Merry Christmas for all

By Staff
Melissa Dozier-Cason, FCT Writer
RED BAY – Churches throughout Franklin County participated in Operation: Christmas Child, a program designed to distribute shoeboxes filled with gifts to children through out the world.
Churches brought wrapped shoe boxes stuffed with toys to the First Baptist Church of Red Bay Monday morning. The boxes were taken to Tupelo in order to be sent to the distribution center in Atlanta, pastor Rick Murrell said.
This year l,177 shoe boxes were collected in Franklin County and taken to the collection center in Tupelo. This is an increase from last years total of 1,063 boxes, Murrell said.
"We have been doing this for about six years," Murrell added.
Once the boxes get to Atlanta, they are stuffed with extra filler, sealed shut and sent worldwide to children in need, Kathy Archer, Operation: Christmas Child volunteer, said.
One year the members of First Baptist Church of Red Bay wrote a letter and put it in one box, and several months later they received a letter back from the child who received the shoebox. The letter was in Russian, and it had to be translated, Murrell said.
"When we got that letter back that year, it put things into perspective for us and showed that our contributions really do make a difference," Murrell said.
The boxes are taken to places that we often forget exist – places where the people live in huts and there is no mail service. Some governments who don't want them in their country, Archer said, sometimes delay the boxes.
"They take these boxes by mule to villages without mail or any modern conveniences," Archer said.
Operation: Christmas Child was founded by Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, and is an official project for the Samaritan's Purse organization.
Ideal gifts for the shoeboxes are small toys, crayons, or small coloring books.
Samaritan's Purse has a list of items that they recommend to be given.