Sometime about now hundreds of people will begin packing shoeboxes with gifts to be sent to poor children around the world via Operation Christmas Child (OCC), a program sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse.
It all sounds innocent enough. Who in the rich western world can refuse to send one box of specially selected Christmas gifts to a child somewhere in the rest of the world? Even US presidents since Ronald Reagan have joined the action to help send more than 50 million shoeboxes around the world. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
My wife, Ruth, and I have packed some shoeboxes ourselves to send off with OCC. As far as I know, our motives were pure, as are those of millions of others repeating the same act every year. All across the land we experience warm feelings about having done at least something to alleviate the suffering of the less fortunate in our world.
However, after careful research and reflection over the years, I find that the sheen has started coming off the shoeboxes we used to send. This process was accelerated when I tried to communicate with Samaritan’s Purse about my concerns but got no response. I suppose when a program is wildly “successful” it is not necessary to dialogue with people like me who have some serious questions to ask.
Having lived in a poor country for a number of years, I have a fairly good idea about how aid is received in such places and what effect it has on individuals and communities. I have seen how well-intentioned aid to poor people can lead to a variety of social ills when not administered well, including dependency and damage to the local economy. I have some painful memories about these things and so feel compelled to raise concerns I see with this contemporary shoebox phenomenon.
So I will ask some questions about OCC which may disturb some people. But so far no one has answered these questions to my satisfaction. I have tried asking these questions of Samaritan’s Purse directly but have heard no response. So the following questions remain in my mind.
1. Does OCC promote community?
It appears that not all children in a community receive shoeboxes, only those pre-approved as being most needy. Would our Christmas cheer money not be better spent on something that would benefit entire communities?
2. Does OCC undermine local economies?
In cases where truckloads of shoeboxes flood communities with free gifts every year, local businesses will suffer major setbacks. How can they compete with all the free toys, school supplies and other products arriving in their villages?
3. Does OCC undermine the dignity of parents?
Can you imagine how parents feel, if year-after-year, their inability to provide for their children is underscored by the arrival of shoeboxes full of things they will never be able to afford? Would a healthier approach to children in need not be to work with entire communities so that in the end parents would have the dignity of buying Christmas gifts themselves for their children?
4. Does OCC create false expectations?
Most of the gifts purchased in the West for the shoeboxes are of a quality and variety that will likely never be available on the local market in poor countries. Is it fair to raise the expectations of children that one day they or their parents will, or should be able to, buy similar products. Their continued access to such goods will most likely only be through more shoeboxes arriving with contents chosen for them indiscriminately by different persons in the West each year.
5. Does OCC make good use of resources?
It takes millions of volunteer hours and lots of money and energy (fossil fuels) to shuttle all these boxes around the globe. Would it not make more sense to harness all these resources to assist poor villagers in more culturally and economically sensitive ways?
6. Is OCC constructed around the needs of givers in the West more than around recipients in poor countries?
Buying stuff and putting it into boxes that will travel around the world makes us feel good about ourselves, even though the long-term ramifications abroad might be harmful. Is it fair to say that we in the West need to make some kind of guilt offering to assuage our consciences regarding the massive disparity of wealth in the world?
7. Does OCC represent the message of Christ well?
Wherever possible, shoeboxes are distributed following some kind of evangelistic event to which children must come. Also evangelistic literature accompanies the boxes wherever possible. I support responsible evangelism. But how would you respond if the tables were turned? Suppose you were a poor, third-world, Christian parent suffering economic hardship. And the only way your child could get access to a shoe-box full of goodies would be to attend a Hindu evangelistic event? And then, when your daughter returns home clutching a shoebox, she informs you that she now has become a Hindu? Would you not feel manipulated?
In reflecting on these questions, a friend recently said the following: “It seems to me that the shareholders of Walmart might be the biggest benefactors of this program, our guilt appeasement next, and finally the recipient of a box full of stuff that is somewhat indiscriminately distributed. At the very least we need to have a discussion about how a wealthy culture relates to a less privileged one. Are we, in fact, partly responsible for the inequity” Is my friend right?
Fortunately there are alternative ways to express your Christmas joy at this time of the year. Samaritan’s Purse itself is involved with various community projects worthy of support, even though such efforts dwarf their shoebox enterprise.
Over the past years, Ruth and I have chosen to spread our Christmas cheer through responsible agencies like Mennonite Economic Development Agency (MEDA) and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Our research indicates that they work very hard to avoid the pitfalls of the seven concerns raised above.
Whatever you do this Christmas, I invite you to do it thoughtfully and prayerfully, keeping in mind what the needs of poor families around the world really are.
