20th December
Ruth Tisdall
Young person's distribution team in Kosova

"Thank you!"
That word for many people rolls off the tongue with ease after opening a present at Christmas and then they move on to the next one, again with another quick thank you. But imagine opening a box covered in wrapping paper and seeing inside it a selection of toys, sweets and toiletries. It's hard to imagine the feelings those children experience. They go to a school which is plain, dirty and the corridor walls are chipped and marked. Their classrooms are bare, with no posters or brightly coloured paper to light up the room, and they sit on rough cold wooden chairs and tables to sit three. But today is different. A group of adults have come from England carrying a guitar and big brown cardboard boxes. They ask the children whether they like presents and singing and dancing. "Yes!" they all cry in unison and the team mix with the kids in the classroom from front to back and the music starts. They all have a great time, clapping, singing, and following funny actions to go with the songs. The kids laugh at each other as they jump around and watch their friends dancing with the visitors. 

After a selection of amusing songs they sit down and wait with anticipation as the brown cardboard boxes are opened and smaller multicoloured boxes are pulled out and handed to each child. Once every child has one they pull off the rubber bands, snip the sellotape and pull off the lids. They're hit with a rainbow of colour and their faces light up with wonder as they dive into their precious treasure chests with new hats, gloves, cuddly toys, cars, dolls, hair accessories (for girls), tooth brushes and tooth paste. They look at the team and an echo of "Thank you!" is heard around the room. Their Christmas has arrived and even though they have little decorations, heating or Christmas dinner, they have a shoe box which has been given to them by other children their age from another country and they know that they are loved unconditionally.  

19th December
From jounalist Steve Mellen in Belarus

Being given a shoe box at Christmas can open up a whole new world to a child. But for the people delivering the gift from the UK , new horizons also appear, and new discoveries await. And these are not always easy to take in. The Samaritan's Purse team in Belarus has had many occasions to smile this week, be it during a snowball fight at an orphanage (we lost, there were too many of them) or watching a nativity scene in Russian, but there have also been times for quiet reflection.

The volunteers have been reminded that while the clean, modern streets of the capital Minsk reflect a fledgling country moving into pastures new, dark shadows still hang over it. Samaritan's Purse Regional Director Nicolai Balbutski took the 2007 team into the suburbs on Sunday, to a bowl-shaped open space below a housing estate, the site of what was once the largest Jewish ghetto in Europe . A sculpture depicting men, women and children being led into the centre of the arena marks the spot where on March 2, 1942 , the ruthlessness of the German war machine reached a new low. Most of the atrocity stories told about the holocaust speak of trains taking the innocent to concentration camps. In Minsk , the Nazis killed many of the Jews where they lived, and flattened their neighbourhoods. And on that black day in 1942, 5,000 men and women were shot in that one bowl, which was dug deep to muffle the sound of the shots. When you consider that Belarus before World War II, had close to 50% of its total population Jewish, it's no wonder the spot is marked with such reverence.

An invasion of a different type – just as deadly but invisible – hit this former Soviet state in April 1986 when an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant spread deadly radiation. It may have been more than 20 years ago, but the team will fly back to Heathrow having seen first hand how the affects still linger. Just outside the town of Mogilev is one of the worst-affected areas, where even children born in the last decade suffer health problems because of the polluted soil and water. Shoe boxes were delivered to some of the poorest families in the area, under supervision from local social workers having their first encounter with OCC .

The team moved on to the deserted village of Veprin, which once had a population of 3,500, but is now just a collection of empty houses in an eerie landscape after the authorities evacuated everyone because of the high radiation readings. But not everyone left. One old couple refused to join the exodus, and still live among the shells of their neighbours' houses, despite being in their seventies. All the volunteers were amazed to meet the grandmother who has defied all requests to abandon her home, despite there being no power and no running water. Once a week a car comes delivering food, but aside from that she fends for herself and her husband.

Distribution Team – Romania 18th December

With feelings of both excitement and apprehension the 15 member team set off for Romania on 13 th December for a 7 day Distribution Team Trip. The first destination was Cluj-Napoca , home for our OCC National Leadership Team, Ecce-Homo. With a beaming smile, Liviu Balas met us at the airport in Cluj after 14 hours of travel for many.

Over the next 3 days we carried out shoe box distributions that demonstrated to everyone the real value in giving a shoe box. Most will say that it is impossible to put this experience into words. You simply need to experience a distribution event. The following stories from team members give some sense of the joy, excitement, happiness, delight, exuberance, words that still do not do justice to the impact that a shoe box can have on a child at a moment in time.

Receiving more than we had given
Bravery comes in many shapes and sizes and we encountered it in the cancer ward in Cluj-Napoca in the shape of Anna Maria and a little boy aged 9 and his grandmother. Anna Maria has travelled across Romania by herself to receive chemotherapy treatment for two weeks. Her cancer had left her with a paralysed arm and leg and yet she sat, serenely, chattering with us. In the next bed was a 9 year old boy, attended by her grandmother, who had looked after him from birth as his parents were living and working in Spain . Her devotion to him was lovely to see. They were eager for us to pray for them, but when we prayed for the grandmother she dissolved into tears that may have been unshed for weeks, maybe months. We came away feeling very humble and in a very real sense, felt we had received more than we had given.

An angel from heaven
On Friday, the team was split into two groups and visited different paediatric hospitals around Cluj. We were part of a team which visited an intensive care unit. A fellow team member had one shoe box left for a boy aged 10-14. She was asked to go into a side room where a boy of 14 was lying in a bed. The previous day he had been in a car accident in which both his parents died. The boy was still in deep shock following major surgery. His grandmother was by his side and was overcome by emotion. I joined my fellow team member in the room as she held the boys hand and stroked his head. She spoke to him as he looked up at her. She handed him a shoe box and held up the items one by one to show him what was inside. The love that came out of that box was overwhelming. And, the boy spoke in English to say thank you. His arm was heavily strapped following surgery. He was on a drip and under constant observation. Without speaking I hugged the boy's grandmother and tears fell down her face. Words were needed as she expressed her grief. On leaving the room she spoke in Romanian, which was translated as, ‘You are an angel from heaven'. Despite the terrible grief that she was experiencing, the grandmother found these few words to say thanks you for the shoe box wrapped in Christmas paper and filled with gifts. It is difficult to put into words how we felt in that room. But, there is no question that the shoe box brought happiness at the most difficult time in their lives.

Wow! Wow! Wow!
What present would have the wow factor for you this Christmas? An MP3 player, a Wii or an expensive piece of jewellery. Whilst distributing shoe boxes in a school for the visually impaired and a kidney ward in a hospital in Cluj, a shoe box was given to a girl named Yelena and a boy named George. Carefully examining the contents, one by one, the children exclaimed Wow! as they pulled out a hat. Wow! As they took out a scarf. Wow! As they removed some paper and pens. Wow! As they cuddled a soft toy and Wow! As they found some sweets. Both children beamed with pleasure as each new treasured gift was examined then completely replaced in the box. Such simple gifts, but what a difference it made to those joyful recipients.

Too young to be buying Pampers
We had been invited to the Ecce-Homo run Social Centre for an evening meal. The centre is home for 12 children aged between 6 and 14 that have either lost their parents or have been abused and need a safe environment. One really cheeky girl called Yelena stood out as a character. Not only did she speak very good English, but she had a maturity that was beyond her years. Using some finger puppets, she and her friends were kept amused throughout dinner and the cheeky, fun loving side of her personality shone through. It was only much later in the evening that we found out about Yelena's story. Her father had abandoned the family and her mother had become an alcoholic that regularly spent weeks away from the home. At the age of just 7, Yelena had willingly stepped into her mother's shoes and provided for her twin sisters aged 8 months and another younger sister aged 3, by begging on the streets. She made sure that all the sisters had food and the twins had Pampers. Such responsibility on such young shoulders! After social workers found out about Yelena's plight, she was taken into the centre and regularly visits her sisters now in another home. Through OCC, Ecce-Home has been able to reach out into communities. The evening we spent with Yelena was magnificent and was part of the process of giving her childhood back.

17th December
From jounalist Steve Mellen in Belarus

If you want to find a place where Christmas would be all but cancelled but for Operation Christmas Child, then take a drive north out of the Belarusian capital Minsk , to the town of Borisov .There, in the local babies' home tucked away in a nondescript building, around 100 children sit and wait. They wait for the time when they will be too old to stay there, and will be transferred into another state-run facility. They wait for medical check-ups to confirm diabetes or cerebral palsy – both of which are rife – and they wait for visits from their parents. Growing old is inevitable, and medical visits are regular. But most of them wait in vain to see their mother or father.

This is the place where a dedicated team of nurses and carers welcome the babies born into homes that could not cope with them, or where drink or crime were higher on the list of priorities.

The Samaritan's Purse team that went there on Friday (December 14 th ) along with a consignment of shoe boxes – the sixth time Operation Christmas Child has delivered gifts – saw first hand the size of the task facing those who have to deal with the unwanted children of Belarus .

In the first room the volunteers entered, amid the discarded wrapping paper and new toys, was Gala, aged two-and-a-half. She was abandoned by her mother while still in the maternity home, although that was almost a relief to the doctors monitoring her, as they spotted the signs of neglect very early. At four months old, after the maternity unit staff realised her mother had no interest in even feeding her child, let alone caring for her or taking her home, Gala was taken to the Borisov Babies' Home. Her mother has never visited her.

In the same room was Sacha, able to count to five in English and tell the visitors from the UK that she loved them. In a familiar story, her mother signed over her parental rights after being sent to prison, and has never been to see her since.

The most difficult story was that of Sophia, aged three, who has lived all of her short life with a heart defect and concerns over her lack of mobility. After months of massage, medical intervention and physiotherapy she is now able to play with her friends in the home but her mother – an alcoholic – has never been to check on her daughter's progress, this despite living one street away from the home.

Admittedly the situation for these children is not as hopeless as in other former Soviet countries. The Borisov Babies' Home is funded by the state, and when the children leave there, other institutions take over their care. But the rate of adoptions - their best hope of a normal life as the families so rarely take an interest – is still very low at around 20%. As is so often the case, now that contact has been made with the home, more can be done. In a country where Operation Christmas Child has grown from a few hundred shoe boxes coming in to nearly 250,000 in 11 years, visits outside of the festive season are beginning to develop.

During the past two years work teams from the UK went to Borisov, and the evidence of their hard work in decorating, plastering and painting is clear to see in the corridors and colourful rooms of the Babies' Home. And like many SP projects, it's an ongoing work, as Regional Director Nicolai Balbutski explains. “It's important that we visit every Christmas, because every new season brings a new group of children who would not otherwise receive gifts. The shoe boxes open doors for us, and we can go into places like this home and see what the need is. The gifts are really appreciated because these children would otherwise have nothing as their families do not come to see them at any time.”

13th December
From Alan Cutting in Serbia
International Partnerships and Teams Manager

Evana's story
We had been invited to take the service at Nis Baptist Church, southern Serbia.  Pastor Cedo drew my attention to a young girl in the music band.   " She's 11 now, he told me.  Four years ago she came to my door and very politely asked me for a shoe box.  I gave her a box , then she asked for another one .  For her older sister.  Then she politely asked if she could come to Sunday school.  Now she sings in the band,  and loves to learn more about Jesus."

After singing in the worship band at the Sunday morning church service, Evana, 11, spent  the next four hours working hard, distributing shoeboxes to other children. Many were older than her.  To each  child , Evana, 11, gave a big  smile and a  personal greeting. As the empty cartons were being cleared away, I asked her to tell me her story.

"It was eight years ago when I first received a shoe box."  Evana, 11, spoke with enthusiasm and confidence.  "In my box was a doll in winter clothes.  I've still got it."  She smiled a purposeful smile, before industriously  continuing with her story. "There was also a necklace, and bracelets.  But I couldn't remember who gave it to me. Years later, a friend of my father told me who the shoebox people were.  I went and found them, and asked for another one.  And one for my older sister.  Then I wanted to find out more about God, and how to love him.” 

I interrupted her  eloquent flow .   “If you could meet the person  from the UK who packed your box, " I asked, " what would you want to say to them?”

“I could not tell them enough about  how shoeboxes have changed my life.  I wouldn't be here without them.  Jesus teaches me to respect my parents, and I long to be baptised.  I want to give my heart away to Jesus and live for him forever.  I have been helped, and I want to help all day." 

And with that, Evana, 11, rushed off to help clear up the empty cartons left after the distribution had ended. 

12th December
From journalist Kate Nicholls in Serbia
Courtesy of Gloucester Citizen

School with a big heart cares for 900 children
Today has been the most emotionally draining and difficult day so far. The day kicked off with a visit to the Milan Petrovic School "The School With A Heart", which caters for 900 children aged 5-18 with slight to moderate mental and physical disabilities. Staff at the school stressed they could not express enough their thanks to the team for the shoe boxes. They put on a show in our honour and presented us with hand-made gifts. But it is us who felt privileged to have been there.

Ivan has a sweet tooth
I played with Ivan, 5, who was over-the-moon with his shoe box items. He is blind, so each item was gently placed in his hand and he gingerly touched them and ran his hand up and down them. His carer asked him to try and guess what each item was and he got them all right. I saw him hold each item up to his nose to sniff it to help him guess. His favourite items were a ball and packet of skittles. Many of the children are so sweet and generous they try to offer the sweets back to us.

Gina melts hearts
In the evening we went to Sremska Kamenica "Children's Village" orphanage. It was pitch black and cold when we arrived but many of the children were stood outside waiting for us. here are 130 children at the orphanage aged between 4 and 18. They can remain at the orphanage as long as they are at high school, and after that they will move into special apartments to help them bridge the gap between the orphanage and "real life." As soon as I walked into the main building, where shoe boxes are being handed out, a small hand gripped mine and an arm was wrapped around my waist. A beautiful child with short ebony hair and huge brown sparkling puppy-dog eyes looked intently at me. For the next hour she does not leave my side and she tries to shoo off any other children who come near me. I want to whisk her up in my arms and give her all the love and affection she so desperately deserves and needs. Her name is Dragana and she is 11 but, like many of the children I have seen here she looks much smaller and younger than her age. Our group was also very taken by
Gina, 9, who has been at the orphanage for about four years. Just a minute in Gina's presence would melt even the hardest of hearts. She literally skipped around the room and had a glorious grin showing rows and rows of pearly white teeth. She hugged and hugged the members of our team. But of course she was not always like that - one of the staff members at the orphanage says she has changed beyond all recognition.

You can't put a price on love
At the end of the day I am physically and emotionally exhausted- largely because today we had a lot of time to interact with the children and build up a relationship and connection with them. I had a wonderful, overwhelming morning playing with school children as they opened their shoe boxes. But later meeting the orphans and seeing inside a mental institution left me feeling helpless and powerless and yet desperately wanting to do more for the people I have met. That a child should be parted from its parents seemed to me a different but perhaps much greater hardship than that suffered by the Roma children I met who live on the landfill site. For them you can dream and hope that maybe they will one day get the financial help to improve their lives. But money will make no difference to the children living without their parents - no price can ever be put on love.

11th December
From journalist Kate Nicholls in Serbia
Courtesy of Gloucester Citizen

80 Euros a month for a family of 9
Another busy, frantic day which has left me with a myriad of vivid, contrasting, precious memories - I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Today we visited two Roma (Gypsy) communities near Novi Sad where we will be based for the remainder of our stay.
The conditions they live in are not as deplorable as the Roma children we saw yesterday (here the homes are built out of bricks not cardboard, at least) but they are still harrowingly horrific and heartbreaking. The difference is because these families are registered with The Government and receive some sort of social benefit - but it is only about 80 Euros a month, for a family of up to nine. Because they are registered, the children must go to school - some are even taught their own gypsy language. The houses stand in thick deep mud, the ground is littered with rubbish and torn and patched flimsy clothes hang on barbed wire.

The shoe box is everything for Damian
In the afternoon we go to see the Roma community in the centre of Beochin, which is 20km from Novi Sad . About 600 families live on the site and the children run up to us as soon as we arrive and wave. Despite their excitement they wait patiently in a queue for more than a hour for their boxes. The queue is long so I entertain the children by blowing bubbles at them. The children go wild with excitement, stretching out their hands and grabbing the bubbles and chasing and stamping on them. Gigantic grins spread across their faces and they laugh and laugh and laugh. Damian,4, is one of the last to receive his box, but for him no wait is too long. He opens his box in front of us and takes out some of the items - he has a football toy, a ball and a plastic key ring which he particularly likes and tucks up in the palm of his hand. He is a born performer and loves posing for the camera. The interpreter tells us that Damian is the youngest of four children and is the family favourite. His family call him a kitten because he is so affectionate and playful. He loves trucks and cars and likes playing football. I ask what the shoebox means to him. The response? - everything.

Senia the budding artist
Despite the poverty they live in, the Roma families are fiercely proud of their homes and readily invite us in. The houses here are much bigger and warmer than the one I saw yesterday, but still only about the same size as my bedroom at home. We go in one and see Bajramsa, six, and Senia, four, playing with their shoebox items. Senia who likes art, is busy scribbling away with her new crayons and notepad, drawing frantically. She is so entranced she doesn't even realise we are there.

Today we have handed out almost 1,000 shoeboxes. Our team is shattered but get through the exhaustion with the buzz that comes from knowing they have helped the children this Christmas.

10th December 2007
From journalist Kate Nicholls in Serbia
Courtesy of Gloucester Citizen

The range of images seen by me on my first day in Serbia,are more diverse and contrasting than I thought possible, Children's faces lit up by their huge broad smiles as they catch sight of the precious shoe boxes, eyes wide with excitement. Plenty of laughter. But also faces with such harrowing expressions they pierce straight through the heart. Barefooted, poorly clothed children running through mud who live on a rubbish site wasteland where even crows would struggle to survive.

Moma and his cars
Our first day is spent on a whirlwind tour of Belgrade. To begin, we head to the Krnacha refugee camp in Pancevo, where 600 refugees live. As we approach the camp a chill goes down my spine and I get goosebumps. Rows and rows of monotonous small white buildings meet my eye, the ground is pot-holed and littered with rubbish, the grass verges overgrown and wild. The place is souless. During the Balkan Wars 700,000 refugees
came to Serbia from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo in influxes in 1991, 1995 and 1999. Today 300,000 remain. Many of the families at this camp have been here for 15 years, not the promised two. All the young children I meet have been born here. I visit a house, which measures 15 feet by 12 feet, where a family of four must eat, wash and sleep. Although it has basic equipment it is no bigger than the size of my room back home. The families tell of their total despair and depression - they feel they have no future. But the children show sheer joy as they open their shoe boxes Moma, 3, is delighted with his toy cars and plays with them transfixed. He does not let them out of his grip and beams for the camera, his wide smile animating his whole face. Angela, 10, shows off her new scarf and hat and is clearly very proud. She takes each item out of the box one by one, and then neatly places everything back in there - even the elastic band.

Zelco 'sings'
After an hour we leave for the institution for mentally-handicapped people in Belgrade - the first of its kind in Serbia -where the atmosphere is rather more upbeat. As our van draws up we see dozens of excited faces eagerly pressed against windows and when we enter there is thunderous applause. As well as the 130 people at the centre, aged between 15 to 45 years who perform a play for us, we are joined by young children from the Serbian Association for Down's Syndrome. A shoe box is given to Zelko, who is blind. He has been at the centre for seven years and had the lead role in play. He also serenades me with the song "Sandy" from Grease which is his favourite film.

A cloud with a silver lining for Silvana
I was completely unprepared for what came next - our visit to the Roma (Gypsy) children who live under the Gazela bridge in Belgrade. Never in my worst nightmare did I imagine such squalour and poverty was possible. Thousands of Roma children live on a landfill site and the ground is littered with all kinds of rubbish - plastic bottles, sacks, polystyrene, furniture, car parts and cardboard boxes. Families even use the cardboard cartons the shoe boxes are transported in, to build their houses, which measure about 9ft by 9ft and are made from wood, plastic, cardboard and material. On our way to deliver the shoe boxes we wade through ankle deep mud, slipping and sliding. But the children run through the mud barefoot. Above the children rise the giant, shadowy concrete pillars of the bridge, which seems to be a symbol of doom. It is raining heavily - which is apt, because there is certainly no blue sky for these children, who live crammed in tiny houses with rats. Despite the rain and cold I see a girl who is wearing a turqouise top with no sleeves. Her name is Silvana and she is four. A grin spreads across her face when she receives her shoe box, even though we don't see her open it. The slum houses have little light and no water supply so the inhabitants must walk 25 minutes to get water. These horrifying images, inconceivably bad, will remain etched in my imagination forever. We wind up the day with a visit to a shoe box distribution at the Holy Trinity Church. Here we meet single parent families and families affected by war. They sing us songs and bright smiles greet us, but I am still haunted by the Roma images I have seen.