Operation Christmas Child touches Nepal
We are approaching the final week of this year's Operation Christmas Child programme, which asks people to donate shoeboxes full of gifts for a needy child overseas. Many schools promote it as a nice way for all children, whatever their religion or lack of it, to do something for others at Christmas.
What schools often do not tell parents (because they do not realise themselves) is that Operation Christmas Child is a highly evangelical programme, run by American fundamentalists, which uses shoeboxes as a way to lure small children into the church.
However, the video above - from the website of the OCC parent organisation, Samaritan's Purse - makes it abundantly clear exactly what they are doing, and what they think of other religions (Hinduism = darkness from which children must be saved by missionaries bearing shoeboxes).
Parents may also be interested to hear that Samaritan's Purse is run by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham; he is best buddies with George Bush and Sarah Palin, describes Islam as evil, diverts the 'international relief' charity's funds to support the campaign against same-sex marriage in the US, promotes abstinence-only sex education in areas with a high HIV rate, and lots of other unsavoury things.
If your school promotes Operation Christmas Child, and they have not told you about the evangelical nature of the programme, please suggest the head teacher watches that video clip and has a good look round the Samaritan's Purse website.
(My apologies for yet another Operation Christmas Child thread, but this is the first one I have ever started, because I think that video deserves a wider audience)
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
AIBU?
AIBU to ask you to watch this video about Operation Christmas Child?
97 replies
exexpat · 10/11/2013 10:00
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.