Samaritan's Purse Comes to Boca del Rio

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!

To everyone who has prayed and to everyone who has given over the past couple of days to meet this need we send a huge

THANK YOU!!!

We've reached our goal and will be able to distribute the gifts to the area children as we had prayed!!! We'll be sure to post lots of pictures here next week so you can see what we're up to! I'd like to give a special thanks to Miss Jocelyn at A Pondering Heart and the Mom-Team over at 5 Minutes for Mom for their "boost" to this endeaver. (Even though I think they would probably rather not have the credit, I'd still like to say thank you for linking up!)

Once again, Merry Christmas everyone!!!

For the first time in the history of this small fishing village, Samaritan's Purse: Operation Christmas Child is coming!

Pastor Ricardo went to Guamuchil with a group of area pastors yesterday to find out what they needed to do to receive the shoeboxes. He stopped by this morning with a prayer request, which I'm passing on to my loyal blog readers! ;^)

Samaritan's Purse will make the shoeboxes available to the church at a cost of 7 pesos each. We did wonder, as I'm sure you are wondering, why there would be a charge to receive these gifts. The men at the distribution point said that the charge was to cover the transport of the boxes from the port of Mexico City to Guamuchil (20 hours away). At any rate, the cost works out to about $.50 each. Calvary Chapel -- Boca del Rio would like to be able to distribute the boxes to the children of Boca del Rio and Las Glorias and also to the villages of Las Pitayas and Carricitos (villages which suffer extreme poverty and have no Christian church). We've cancelled our children's Christmas party, which was scheduled for today, and are praying for enough funds to purchase 500 boxes. The day of distribution will be January 2, so there is still a week to raise the money needed. That date coincides with the national celebration of Three Kings Day -- which is another gift-giving holiday here.

I know that this time of year, you see someone with their hand out every time you turn around. The Salvation Army is ringing the bell to take your change, there's a homeless person in every parking lot asking for work or food, the youth group is raising money for this, the children's department needs that, and to top it off the kids' Sunday school class expects 2 dozen cookies by tomorrow.

Well, I don't want to add to the chaos and craziness, but if you do happen to have a couple of dollars extra and would like to send a very special gift to one of 500 kids who might not receive any other gift this Christmas, it would be a blessing. We are trusting God to provide the $250 needed.

If you find yourself unable to help financially, will you please pray? We know that the fervent prayers of a righteous man avails much! So pray fervently that God would provide and that the Church would be able to bless these children and that a door would be opened to share the Gospel in Las Pitayas and Carricitos!!!

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!