Operation Christmas Child

Today was a very exciting day as I got to participate in my very first Operation Christmas Child distribution! I loved every minute of it! We went to a Roma school here in Skopje. The staff of this school pick up children from their homes or off the streets to give them baths, treat their heads for lice, feed them, and educate them in preparation for public school. Roma children can attend here if they do not have the needed documents to attend public school. The children at this school are the same ones that can be seen around town begging for money. There are so many Roma children that need help that the children have to attend this school on a rotation because there's not enough room for all of them to come every day. The goal of this staff is to prepare the children to enter public school and to help them succeed. This year there are 12 students in public school that use to attend this Roma school.

The lesson today was teaching the difference between "right" and "left". The ages of the children are from 5-12 and they were all learning the same lesson. Even though this lesson may seem way too elementary for the older students, it really wasn't, because they are just now attending school for the first time.

I was a little disappointed that the teacher didn't allow the students to open their boxes while we were there, but I've taught children before and I know that something this exciting can throw the whole day off. She was asking them to wait until later so they could finish their school time and I completely understand. Things would have been chaos if they had been able to open the gifts right away! Plus-- better for me because I probably would have completely embarrassed myself crying tears of joy if I got to see the children open the gifts. The children were told that the gifts were from Americans that love Jesus and they each received a children's track in the Macedonian language telling them about Jesus Christ, God's Son.

Thank you to everyone that sent shoe boxes through Samaritan's Purse!!