This group of volunteers recently traveled to the Samaritans purse Operation Christmas Child processing center in Atlanta, Georgia. The group has been busy this week processing OCC shoebox gifts. These boxes will be traveling to other countries, to bless children over the world over the next few weeks. Pictured from left are OCC Ky Director Clint Fields, Mark Fudge, Denise Fudge, Tricia Malpica, Eric Malpica, Justin Burris, Pam Burris, Gail Watkins, Linda Watkins, Evan LaBarge, Aaron LaBarge, Patsy Wilson, Kerry Radford, Terrie Radford, Jackie Phelps, and Kathy Phelps. The group is made up primarily of individuals from the Columbia Baptist Church, but also has volunteers from other churches in the area as well. The Atlanta processing center has already processed more than 1 million shoebox gifts and hopes to reach 2 million shoeboxes by the end of next week. Nationwide at the eight processing centers across the United States, Samaritans Purse hopes to process over 12 million shoebox gifts over the next few days. An amazing statistic about the shoebox gifts in 2024 is that 27% of the recipients of shoebox gifts, led to the gift of salvation for the children receiving their boxes. Not only do the children receive the wonderful gifts in each shoebox, but they also receive gospel materials written in their own language, which consists of a 12 week study of the gospel. Columbia Baptist Church has had a group travel to the Atlanta processing center almost every year since 2016.
Pam Burris, Patsy Wilson and Terrie Radford stay busy making sure each box had all of the essential items before it made its next step down the assembly line.
Justin Burris, Aaron Labarge and Erick Malpica stayed busy packing the boxes into cartons and scanning the boxes so individuals can track the nations or countries their boxes travel to.
Brother-in-law‘s Kerry Radford and Jackie Phelps were busy scanning and re-tapping the boxes.
Gail and Linda Watkins traveled to the processing center for the second straight year. Their role was to remove items from the boxes that did not belong and make sure each box had the property TLC before moving on to the next person.
Evan LaBarge scans the boxes so that individuals can track which nation or country their box might travel to. He has been a regular at the processing center since he turned 13 years of age.
Tricia Malpica from Knifley is a year round volunteer for Operation Christmas Child. This was her first visit to the Atlanta processing center.
(Mark Fudge – Operation Christmas Child)