I can never forget the program of Operation Christmas Child sponsored by Samaritan Purse, United States of America. Rev. Dr. Franklin Graham, son of the world renowned evangelist Rev. Dr. Billy Graham heads the organization. Samaritan Purse is known for its commitment to helping the poor through their multifaceted works of charity and novel methods of interpreting the gospel through evangelism all over the world. Thave had the privilege of heading the operational ministry of Samaritan Purse in India with Rev. Scott Norling for ten years. As their effective partners, we have taken the responsibility of implementing their “Operation Christmas Child” program all over India for 10 years from the year 2002-2012.

Operation Christmas Child is a program designed to give gifts to children all over the world irrespective of their nationality and creed. It is a gift that carries the message and meaning of Christmas Child, Jesus Christ.

Samaritan Purse collects millions of gifts from children the USA and other developed countries. The children pa their gifts in boxes and send them to Samaritan Pur offices. There in the Samaritan Purse offices, the gifts a packed with international standards acceptable to export

These gifts include toys, children Bibles, dresses, pens pencils and many other attractive gifts for children. A boxes may not contain the same items but they carry the same love of the children of the donating countries and the love of Jesus Christ for the children. Privileged children sharing their joy with the less privileged is the nucleus of the project.

God has blessed Gospel Mission of India, headed by Rev. Scott Norling and me to implement Samaritan Purse all over the country. I had the privilege of attending the International Conveners Conference at Bangkok in Thailand and also in Dr. Billy Graham’s office in Asheville, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America.

I can never forget the challenging memories of adventures we have passed through while implementing this program. The Samaritan Purse sends their gift boxes in containers. Each container will approximately contain 7000 boxes. They send the containers to the nearest ports in India. There begins the whole task of our adventure as it includes getting exemption from the payment of Customs Duty from th Ministry of Finance, Government of India, taking the delivery of the containers from the respective ports and transporting them to Guntur or to the selected places where they would be distributed. Getting Customs clearance for the gifts worth millions of dollars was not that easy, but I praise God for His faithfulness we have tasted in the past and even tasting now in every activity of our ministry. God has helped us through highly committed Christian officers at the Central Government to get the exemptions. I am grateful to Mr. N. R. Rayalu, who was the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India during that time for his incredible help in getting the Customs Duty exemption without any difficulty in the beginning. I am also grateful to Customs and Central Excise Officers in Guntur for their timely help. We used to get 40-100 containers every year. I am one of the largest consignees in the world. I am proud to say that our honourable Former Prime Minister Sri. Manmohan Singh Ji has graced one of the distribution programs in Delhi. It was indeed a great honour that I could never forget in my life. The distribution programs were graced by Governors of some States, Ministers of the Central and State Governments and Bureaucrats and Heads of the Churches. Rev. Scott and me had to work relentlessly to see these programs go successfully without any disputes or discrimination.