A Shoebox That Changed a Life

Nearly three years ago, I flew to Portland, Oregon as part of my work on a memoir editing project. That Sunday, I went to church in a small town a couple of hours south of the city.

The surprise that greeted me that day were the stacks of red and green shoeboxes piled high atop the stage at that modest-sized church: 700 in all.

I instantly recognized those boxes as part of Operation Christmas Child (OCC), the global initiative our church participates in. That year, we collected 200, a figure we aim to triple in 2025.

The impact of seeing a church in a town 2,000 miles from my home collecting toys, dolls, books, crayons, and other minutiae for children—just like we were—served as a tangible reminder of the magnitude of OCC.

Surviving Civil War

Recently, I heard a story about a child whose life was changed by one of these shoeboxes.

Alex Nsengimana is a native of Rwanda. He spoke at our church during a regional OCC meeting (some people drove two hours to hear him). We hosted it after the congregation slated to do so backed out at the last minute.

I’m glad they did, because otherwise I might not have heard his dramatic testimony. Alex is a survivor of the 1994 uprising that saw Hutu extremists attack members of the Tutsi tribe, a conflict that claimed about a million lives.

Alex lost his grandmother in the violence, which forced him, his brother, and his sister to flee to another city. Along the route, they faced ever-present danger from militias roaming the countryside.

He described climbing hills and going through valleys, running alongside thousands of refugees when noise from weapons thundered from different directions.

Saved by a Cow Pie

Suddenly, he heard another noise from a distance, which kept getting louder and louder. Just then, he slipped and fell to the ground.

As he tumbled, he happened to go away from the noise, but sensed something whizzing by his head.

Afterwards, he and his brother ran to see what had caused the noise.

“It was a little bullet that had just missed my head because I slipped and fell down, of all things, in a cow pie,” Alex said to laughter. “Little did I know that years later I would be telling people that God used a cow pie to save my life.”

That was only the beginning of the miracles that brought him to America. He now works for Samaritan’s Purse, which sponsors OCC (their goal this year is to collect 12.6 million boxes worldwide).

Three months after his chaotic flight from the violence, an aunt placed Alex and his siblings in an orphanage, shortly before she passed away.

A Marvelous Gift

For illustration purposes.

Then came the day when orphans received OCC boxes.

“We got to open our shoeboxes, screaming with excitement,” he recalled. “We were so excited to receive a gift for the very first time in our lives … A candy cane was my favorite item because it was the most intriguing item that I had ever seen. I had no idea whether it was edible or not.”

That gift marked the beginning of a long journey that led Alex to receive Jesus as his Savior. And, years later, gave him the chance to visit a prison and forgive one of the gunmen responsible for his mother’s death.

There’s far more to this story than I can pack into this space. Suffice it to say that this story is only one of millions where God has done amazing work.