57 boxes for Operation Christmas Child stand in Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church.

“We collected stuff for the month of October for the three churches in the charge,” said Tami Phillips, who helped organize the project.

Phillips mentioned that a church in Creswell serves as one of several collection points for Operation Christmas Child.

Since 1993, more than 100 million boys and girls in over 130 countries have experienced God’s love through the power of simple shoebox gifts from Operation Christmas Child. Samaritan’s Purse works with local churches and ministry partners to deliver the gifts and share the life-changing Good News of Jesus Christ.

The world’s largest Christmas project of its kind, Operation Christmas Child uses gift-filled shoeboxes to demonstrate God’s love in a tangible way to needy children around the world.

Since 1993, the Samaritan’s Purse project Operation Christmas Child has collected and delivered more than 100 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in more than 100 countries. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Operation Christmas Child expects to collect another 9.8 million shoebox gifts in 2013.

Individuals, families and groups fill empty shoeboxes with gifts of toys, school supplies, hygiene items and notes of encouragement. During National Collection Week, Nov. 18-25, 2013, Samaritan’s Purse will collect the gift-filled shoeboxes at more than 3,500 drop-off sites in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.