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Website Report from Region 4 – Southern Counties
December 2009
 Can
you imagine a Christmas without receiving a single present?
I well remember discussing this situation during my first Smiles
mission trip to Oradea during July 2002.
It was now the 17th December 2003, it was cold and snow covered
the ground and clothes on the washing line had frozen solid.
Arrangements had been made for each of the 800 children supported by
Smiles to receive a Shoe Box present through the Operation
Christmas Child programme and now I’m visiting the families. The
children didn’t know what to do with the
shoe box present and they had to be encouraged to open them. OCC has a
policy, because of the vast number of children in the world, to only
give a Shoe Box gift to a child once in their lifetime. So once again,
Smiles children wouldn’t receive a gift at Christmas and as a result
the concept of a Sack of Smiles was developed.
During the mission trip of December 2004 I had the great
privilege of being involved in the preparation and distribution of the
Sacks of Smiles. I well remember all the items for each sack
being laid out in marked boxes in a specific order in the warehouse at
Cihei. There were hats and scarves, toothpaste and toothbrushes,
shampoo, toys, colouring pencils and books and cakes and sweets,
sufficient to fill each sack full. All the items had been
purchased in Romania in order to help the local economy and the sack,
red for girls and blue for boys, doubled as a back pack. Those on the
mission trip excitedly and yet carefully chose the items and placed
them in each named sack. Having gathered the Sacks of Smiles for each
family and the food package, we left with a Social Worker to visit
each family.
The 14th December 2004 was cold and wet and we loaded the van
with supplies for four families. The first, was a family with four
children, they were shy and needed encouragement to open their Sack
of Smiles. The next visit was to a gypsy family with four
children, three boys and a girl. They enjoyed looking into the sacks
and taking out each item one by one. For the next family, mum, dad and
nine children, Christmas had come early as the children became excited
and enjoyed putting on the hats and scarves. I remember a four year
old girl digging deep into her sack and taking out a bar of chocolate
and excitedly exclaiming ‘look mummy’, in Romanian of course but I
understood!
 And so
throughout the mission trip we visited families, one person even
dressed up as Father Christmas …..! One of my favourite visits was to
a family in Marghita. We drove down a muddy dirt track to a block of
three buildings. In the far building, in a very small house, lived a
family of four, mum and dad and two girls. We gave the girls their
sacks and they took out each item. When Anna-Christina found the
doll, her eyes became bigger and bigger and her smile was the biggest
I’d ever seen, a picture never to be forgotten!
I will never forget the smiles that the Sacks of Smiles brought
to children who have so very little, if anything, at Christmas. This
was achieved by many people contributing to the £30/$50 for each sack
……… it’s not too late to contribute to this year’s Sack of Smiles
project. One thing, for sure, I’m looking forward to giving out
the ‘Sacks of Smiles’ this December and I hope I can count on your
contribution to make this Christmas special for a Child!
If you are not convinced, perhaps looking at the video on the
Sack of Smiles web site page, will
help! Happy Christmas!
David
David
Lee
Development Associate for the Smiles Foundation – Region 4
davidlee@thesmilesfoundation.org
Region 4 includes: Northamptonshire,
Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk,
Suffolk & Essex
Previous Reports
North East, November 09
South
West, October 09
Northern Ireland, September 09
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