Shelly Boomhauer – Moms around the world

 

Shelly shares stories from her travels and experiences with Operation Christmas Child as they journeyed to Papua New Guinea to deliver shoebox gifts to kids.  There Shelly met children, many of whom had lost one or both of their parents to HIV-AIDS, who were delighted to receive their boxes filled with treats, clothes, toys and words of greeting.

 

Shelly tells story after story of how God worked in the hearts of the people touched by Operation Christmas Child, and how He worked in the details of each shoebox delivery.  Like the children who were allowed to see their incarcerated fathers for the first time in years as Operation Christmas Child boxes were delivered, by the fathers, to their children in the prison courtyard.  Or the women who left her comfortable life to live in the streets with the street children so that she could gain their trust and care for them – fifty-seven of them.  Or the settlement located in a dump.  This shoebox delivery was highly dangerous for white outsiders, yet God not only paved the way for a safe delivery, Operation Christmas Child workers were welcomed with great pomp and circumstance by the women of the village.

 

Through her Operation Christmas Child experience, Shelly witnessed God’s work in the lives of prison guards, a grandfather, a prison warden, parents, and children.

 

Shelly feels that while she was leaving boxes for children she took away so much more.  For as the hearts of the shoebox recipients were touched, so touched were the those who delivered them.