What’s LOVE got to do with it?
In reaching others it can be everything
Christmas is a special time for Christians as churches ramp up to celebrate the birth of Christ and families look forward to spending time together. It’s also a prime opportunity to evangelize, disciple and show the love and light of Christ to others.
As we enter the Christmas season many question what the real purpose of the holidays is and what it really means to Christians. In some cases, the cynical onlooker may see the season and celebrations as nothing more than a commercial opportunity to increase retail spending and a day o work.
But what if people saw more? Imagine if they saw, and even experienced, unconditional love in action during the season and realized that love came from someone who’s living out Christ’s instruction to love one another despite how close, or far, we are from one another.
Every year MissionWithout Borders (MWB) reaches thousands of families in need across Eastern Europe with its Operation Christmas Love program, showing them there are people out there who care and love them, even though they’ve never met.
The program sees MWB sta fan out across Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine throughout December, delivering locally packed boxes of food and holiday treats to some of the most vulnerable in the community. Recipients are identified by local sta and church partners who focus on those who need the most help, and hope, no matter who they are.
Operation Christmas Love is one of the largest outreach programs as MWB delivers boxes to Christian, Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, seeking and unchurched families through the communities.
Receiving a gift of these boxes can have a huge impact on a family; which Behije Cunin, a grandmother of three children in Albania, can attest to. Her son’s wife abandoned the family three years ago, leaving him to raise and support the children alone.The father Luan connected with MWB through the Family to Family Sponsorship program two years ago and the whole family has since experienced more hope, despite life’s struggles.
“The Mission has become a great support ever since you found the good sponsors abroad to help us.Your support makes a huge di erence,” she says. “Not just the food parcels, but the atmosphere that you create in our home. Now the children are so happy, and they can’t wait to tell their friends about it. The Mission is filling with care and love some of the emptiness that’s in this family because of their mother leaving. God bless you!”
Luan is grateful for the love his family is shown through Operation Christmas Love. “In the run-up to Christmas your heart fills with hope and confidence – and God’s love makes problems fade away. But I only learned this two years ago when I was enrolled in the Mission’s family sponsorship program. This is the second year we’ve celebrated Christmas.”
You can help MWB reach more families in need across Eastern Europe with a gift to Operation Christmas Love and help those in some of the most desperate situations experience the hope the Mission’s support brings.
This winter MWB is striving to distribute more Operation Christmas Love boxes than ever before. With a goal of , boxes to be delivered to families in need this year, there is so much potential to reach struggling families while demonstrating the love and hope relationship with Christ can bring, even in times of desperate need.
You can help MissionWithout Borders reach its Operation Christmas Love goals this year by donating at www. MWBca.org/Love. Every gift will help show a neighbour in need there is someone out there that cares, even if they are from afar and may never meet.