Operation Christmas Child Distributions

If you ever wondered what happens to those shoe boxes after you loyally plop them on the table at your church, please allow me to enlighten you...

First they apparently come to a huge warehouse/storage facility in some centrally located city, like this one in Simferopol.  Andrey and I spent the better part of a day picking up the 6-700 shoeboxes that we would be distributing this year around Kerch.  The ice crystals in air really impart the feeling of being there (this picture was actually my second try as my first effort was frustrated by the cloud of my breath in the middle of the shot).

Then the boxes go to some smaller location to be sorted into gender and age group catagories by ultra-hot volunteers like Sarry.  

Then they are laid out to be distributed to the individual children.  Usually this is done in conjunction with some sort of additional program - in our case, a Christmas play.  The plot of this drama was something like "Alice in Wonderland" meets "The Grinch"....it may have lost something in the translation...which I didn't have.

Which predictably can become a bit of a mad-house.  These children came straight out of the auditorium and into our waiting arms.  Here our camp superstar (and former vocational school student) Dima helps the little girls get exactly the right gift.

In the end everyone goes home happy - which is hard to catch on film as they are usually really serious when a stranger sticks a camera in their face.  This little squirt knew me previously from an earlier visit to his orphanage so he was fully willing to pose for this shot.

I must say that it was comforting to see that the turf battles that are so tempting between US Christian agencies were nowhere to be found, despite there being 2 different ministries involved in this.