Comment
Print
A young man from Rwanda will share his experience as a Samaritan's Purse Christmas Child Shoebox recipient next Wednesday, April 26, at Florence Baptist Church.
Everyone is invited to come hear Alex share his story.
"A small candy cane brought a big smile to my face when I received a shoebox gift in an orphanage following the Rwandan genocide," Alex said in promotional materials for the Christmas Child Shoebox.
Alex writes: Imagine the excitement of 250 children in an orphanage who had never before received a gift, each holding shoeboxes from Operation Christmas Child. We were so curious. What was inside these boxes? Finally, there was a countdown and we opened the lid and looked inside. Kids began screaming left and right, not because they were sad but because of their joy to receive a gift for the very first time."
As I opened my shoebox I saw school supplies, hygiene items such as toothpaste and a toothbrush, socks, underwear, and a watercolor paint set. Some of these items were foreign to me. I looked at the paintbrush-- I didn't know what it was. I looked at the paint-- it was colorful but I didn't know what it was either. I looked at Smarties and wondered what they were. I thought they were medicine. Everything was new! Nearly all of my senses were being used. I was feeling, touching, smelling to figure out what it was. One of my favorite items was discovered using my other sense-- my sense of taste. I had no idea what it was when I ate this item with the plastic still on it. It was sweet. It was very pepperminty. It tasted like something I didn't expect. That was my first time eating a candy cane.
A hair comb was the item that I kept the longest. This wasn't a typical comb. When you opened it on one side there was a pick and by opening the other side with a twist, a brush would come out. I took this comb with me everywhere I went for the next three years.
Every item in that shoebox brought me joy at a time when I had lost all hope.
I didn't see how Jesus Christ was working at that time, but an eternal seed was planted in my heart in that moment. A year later, I realized the many things God did in my life to bring me where I was."
Alex talked about his mother dying of AIDS when he was a young boy. During the Rwandan genocide his grandmother and uncle were killed in front of him.
He said a bullet missed his head by an inch. Alex said he and those with him walked for miles and miles, sleeping in the bushes, the dirt, and abandoned buildings. In the end I was put in an orphanage.
"That box gave me joy when there was nothing left. Something as small as a candy cane put a smile on my face even when I didn't know what it was. God used that moment to give me a glimpse of greater joy that is in Him," Alex continued.
"At that moment as a 7-year-old, I needed to be reminded that someone loved me, someone still cared," Alex wrote.
