Billy Graham’s grandson says Christmas shoeboxes have become a very effective evangelistic tool.
Edward Graham, the grandson of the late Billy Graham, says Operation Christmas Child reaches more children and unreached people with the Gospel than any other global evangelistic event.
Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan’s Purse. Each year, participants fill shoe sized gift boxes and send them to more than 160 nations all over the world.
In one village in Africa in 2016, Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts were delivered to Himba children. The Himba tribe includes about 50,000 semi-nomadic people who mostly practice ancestral worship.
After the Operation Christmas Child outreach for some 130 children in the village, 46 children and six young adults asked to continue learning about Jesus.
For those children, Operation Christmas Child has a 12-lesson discipleship program, The Greatest Journey, a study that shows what it is to be a Christian and how to share the Gospel message.
According to The Christian Post, villagers now have a church building where some 100 Himba gather to worship.
Graham said – “Just like what we saw in Mexico, that village is very proud of their church and where they worship the Lord. And they want other villages, to go out and share the Gospel.”