BASSETERRE St.Kitts, March 3rd 2011 - The St Kitts Evangelical Association in collaboration with the Evangelical church communities of St Kitts and Nevis will be again be staging Operation Christmas this month, March 2011 where thousands of children will be evangelized.

 
Launching ceremonies for this year Operation Christmas Child will be held at the New Testament Church of God in Bath Village, Nevis on this evening (Thursday 03 March at 7.00 p.m.).

In St. Kitts the initiative will be held at the New Covenant Tabernacle at Buckleys, St Kitts on Thursday 10 March.  The Evangelical Outreach event and Gift distributions will be held on Saturday 05 March in Nevis and on Saturday 12 March in St Kitts.

Operation Christmas Child (OCC) is a unique international project of Samaritan’s Purse of the Billy Graham Ministries which has delivered more than 85 million gift-filled shoe boxes to boys and girls in 138 countries worldwide since 1993. These gifts demonstrate God’s love to children in a tangible way and provide volunteer national leadership teams, local churches, and ministry partners with the opportunity to share the Good News of Christ.
 

The OCC’s mission is to demonstrate God's love in a tangible way to needy children around the world, and together with the local church worldwide, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.
 

This year the project will be extended to the evangelical community on Nevis.  Over fifty churches and ministries in St Kitts and Nevis will participate and over 3500 children will be recipient of these gifts.  This year a new feature will be added to the project, the Greatest Journey Discipleship Programme.  The Greatest Journey is an exciting follow-up discipleship program used by Operation Christmas Child to help children become faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

 
The Greatest Journey begins when children are freely offered Gospel storybooks during Operation Christmas Child gift distributions. The most far-reaching impact comes later, when boys and girls are invited to participate in the voluntary 12 lessons Bible study course produced by Samaritan’s Purse.

 
The discipleship programme guides children through a study of who Jesus Christ is, what it means to follow Him, and how to share this exciting message with others. After children complete the program, they are presented with a personalized certificate.

Local church coordinators of this project recently benefitted from training facilitated by Ms Diana Shaw of Belize who serves as the International Field Representative of OCC.  Ms Shaw conducted workshops in both St Kitts and Nevis in February of this year. 
 

Operation Christmas Child is coordinated by the following  National Leadership Team:

 
Bishop Ron Dublin-Collins:     National Leadership Team Director
Pastor Leroy Matthew:           Resources Coordinator
Mr Delvin Thompson:             Operations Coordinator
Mrs Pansyna Bailey:             Discipleship Coordinator
Mrs Sylvia Francois:              Prayer Coordinator
Mrs Teena Guishard:             Resource Officer