[Use the OCC Shoebox Talk PowerPoint with this presentation]
[PowerPoint Slide 1]
What was the best present you were ever given? [click] A bike when you were small? [click] An MP3 player? [click] A ticket to see your football team play in the Cup Final? [click] Maybe just something simple like a day out with the people you love [if appropriate, add a personal example of a great present somebody gave you]. The best presents aren't about how much money a gift cost, the best presents are the ones that show how much somebody has thought about the present, how much care has been taken to make sure that you are being given something that you will enjoy and value and which will make you happy. A well chosen present can change your mood and make your day. Sometimes they can even transform a life.
[PowerPoint Slide 2]
We're thinking today about Operation Christmas Child and their annual Shoebox Appeal. [click] Every year millions of people across the world donate shoeboxes of simple Christmas presents. They fill their shoeboxes with toys, pens, pencils, hygiene products, clothes [remind students of the examples from Opening Activity: Simple Gifts if you used it], maybe adding a personal note or photo of themselves. Once their box is complete, it is sent to Operation Christmas Child's collection point and from there sent on to a foreign country - places such as Romania, Mozambique or Bosnia - where with the help of local churches and charities they are given as Christmas presents to children. The people who organize Operation Christmas Child are Christians, but the shoeboxes full of presents are given freely to children of any faith or none, and with nothing required from them in return. For many of the children, often from the poorest parts of their communities, the presents in the shoebox are the only presents that they are likely to receive at Christmas.
Why do the people behind Operation Christmas Child do this? Jesus told a story where some people are told:
[PowerPoint Slide 3]
'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
(Matthew 25:34-36, New International Version)
The people were confused, and asked when they had ever seen Jesus in such circumstances, let alone done the things he described. Jesus replied:
[PowerPoint Slide 4]
'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
(Matthew 25:40 New International Version)
[click] Christians believe that God wants his people to show kindness to others, particularly to those in need. Operation Christmas Child's Shoebox appeal is a way of meeting the needs of some desperately poor and underprivileged children, offering them simple presents that they will enjoy, but offering them something even more important than that: a sense of hope, and the knowledge that someone somewhere, someone they haven't even met, was thinking about them and caring for them.
[PowerPoint Slide 5]
Let's turn our opening question round. We've thought about the best present you've ever received; [click] now let's think about the best present you have ever given? Maybe you could make a point of handing in your homework on time or behaving well in class, and that would be a great present for your teachers -from some of you, it might be an amazing and unexpected present - but perhaps you can think of something better. Have you ever planned a really special present for someone in your family, or your best friend, or a boyfriend or girlfriend? Perhaps you spent hours planning every tiny detail to make the gift just perfect - something that you knew they would really enjoy and appreciate. [click] If you ever have given a really good present to somebody, you will know that even as the person receiving the present gets great pleasure from it, the person giving the present gets almost as much happiness, first in anticipating and then seeing how the present has been received. The best presents give something back to the giver as well as to the receiver.
Hold that thought while you watch this film clip from the movie Finding Neverland. For those of you who don't know the film, it is the story of writer J.M.Barrie and how he came to write Peter Pan. In the scene we are going to see, it is the opening night of the play. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp, has told the theatre manager, played by Dustin Hoffman, to keep twenty-five single seats, scattered throughout the theatre, for some special guests of his. It's almost time for the performance to start, and the manager has wanted to sell those extra seats. We are about to find out who J.M.Barrie has given the seats to, but as you watch the clip, I'd like you to think about just who gives what to who. Here's the clip.
[Play the clip from Finding Neverland
Start time: 1.06.34 (in chapter 9 of the DVD)
End time: 1.09.49
Clip length: Three minutes and 15 seconds
The clip starts with the theatre doorman (McKenzie Crook) shouting, 'Last call please, ladies and gentlemen.' It ends after the man in the audience laughs when the girl runs offstage after being barked at by the dog.
If you are unable to show the clip, explain that at the start of the show, the adults in the audience, expecting a piece of serious theatre, are confused. However, the reserved seats are for local orphan children who are enthralled by the play, and quickly their child-like delight at what they are seeing begins to spread to the well-heeled adults around them.]
[PowerPoint Slide 6]
J.M.Barrie gave away 25 seats to local orphans, and the orphans were delighted with their special night out. But who was given the most? When the play started, the adults in the audience didn't really get what was going on. It was only when the children started to react - to giggle, to chuckle, to laugh out loud - that the adults started to enjoy themselves. The audience members were given a gift from the children - the gift of seeing the play from a different perspective, and being able to enjoy it properly as a result.
All the children did was receive a gift. For them, a group of poor orphaned children in London in 1904, a night at the theatre must have been an extraordinary, unthinkable treat. But their glee, their childish enthusiasm and unrestrained enjoyment of the show gave just as big a gift to the adults.
[PowerPoint Slide 7]
And that brings us back to Operation Christmas Child. Compared to the things that we hope to get at Christmas, we might not think much of a small cuddly toy, or some toothpaste, or some coloured pencils, [click] but to the children who will be receiving them, they mean the world. And the knowledge that we are doing something to meet the needs of people in troubled parts of the world [click] is a gift for us too, an opportunity to share our love and our good fortune with others.
If you want to be part of this story, it's really easy. All you have to do is to put together a shoebox of your own and send it to Operation Christmas Child. There's a website that tells you everything you need to know at www.samaritanspurse.uk.com/occ , or ask your form tutor for more information.
[Add this paragraph if appropriate]
As a school, we are going to be participating in Operation Christmas Child, and joining with [add name of local church partner] for a service of celebration once all our boxes have been completed. Your form tutors will tell you everything you need to know.
Finding Neverland (Miramax, 2004, certificate PG)