Helping children, a shoe box at a time

Seeing a Ugandan child -- who had never received a Christmas toy -- open a shoe box full of them was well worth the effort it took to help lead Southeast Missouri's Operation Christmas Child last fall, said area co-coordinator Barb Wilfong of Desloge, Mo.

Noting this year's drive runs Monday through Sunday, Wilfong said last year the 18-county region sent 19,861 boxes for distribution by Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief organization based in Boone, N.C., to children in more than 100 nations.

Samaritan's Purse was founded in 1970. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, is the organization's board chairman, president and chief executive officer. Since 1993, the Operation Christmas Child project has collected and delivered more than 100 million gift-filled shoe boxes to children worldwide. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Operation Christmas Child expects to collect another 9.8 million shoe box gifts in 2013.

This area's collection center is Millersville First Baptist Church at 531 Market St. As a collection center, the church will receive the hundreds of shoe boxes packed by area congregations.

"We send small toys like balls, dolls, cars and stuffed animals with toothpaste, toothbrushes, washcloths, powder, deodorant and soap," Wilfong said. "Children literally love soap."

Gene and Barb Wilfong (Submitted photo)

Wilfong, a retired Desloge elementary school reading teacher, and her husband Gene, a former Southeast Missouri Mental Health Center staff development official, joined six teams of 12 people each to distribute boxes in Uganda last April and early May.

"Our base was Kampala," she said. "We flew into Entebbe and drove into different areas. Our bus driver was a man named Beyoncé. People watched and waved as we went through the farming areas.

"The people are very poor. The average family lives on $1.25 a day. It was an experience to see children who had never received a gift open their boxes. They were just so special.

"I can't explain the poverty and all the good things we have. I'll never be the same after seeing that, in a good way. It causes me to think of others a little bit more."

Wilfong doesn't expect to be one of the few to be invited to go again this year to Uganda or some other impoverished country, but she and her husband hope for another such trip in 2015.

She said toys and other items collected before Christmas in the U.S. are not distributed until they clear customs in the various nations, which can take months, although they are delivered more promptly in Mexico.

"It's exciting because we feel like we're helping children," Wilfong said. "We love children."

Gifts are divided into three age groups for boys and girls -- 2 to 4, 5 to 9 and 10 to 14.

Lane Dynneson, director of media ministries at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau, said a Genesis Transportation tractor-trailer rig will be loaded to take the local contributions to Millersville, 18 miles northwest of Cape Girardeau.

"We're the relay site where people can bring boxes or come to fill boxes," Dynneson said. "It's an easy way for people to get involved in world missions and a way to get children to think outside the house."

He may be reached at 334-3200.

In addition to St. Andrew church, 803 N. Cape Rock Drive, area relay centers -- where individuals can deliver their packed shoe boxes or stop in to help pack shoe boxes -- include Potosi Southern Baptist Church, Heather McFarland's home in Park Hills, Mo., the SMTS Co. in Fredericktown, Mo., Bethlehem Baptist Church in Perryville, Mo., Trinity Gospel Church in Sikeston, Mo., Stokeland Drive Church in Malden, Mo., Temple Baptist Church in Poplar Bluff, Mo., the First Baptist Churches of Advance, Mo., and Kennett, Mo., the Lighthouse of Dexter Church, Eastwood Memorial United Methodist Church in Caruthersville, Mo., and a group of churches in Ste. Genevieve, which joined the drive to raise the area effort to 19 counties this year.