A walk in someone's shoes (boxes)

"Have you heard of Samaritan's Purse?" Jhoset asked. It was entirely out of the blue, as we'd just finished another round of ping-pong and Skittles, and it took me a while to decipher his "sawmoditas pores." Finally it clicked: shoeboxes! I told him that I'd packed one every year since I was a kid, and he nodded. "Maybe your box made it to my church. I'd always wondered who was on the other end...what does it look like?"

Turns out, I had the same question (and figured you might, too!). Per Jhoset, here's what a shoebox looks like on a receiving end: the good, the bad, and the unexpected. 

A typical shoebox

1. The boxes are not free. "Crates of shoeboxes are shipped to bigger churches, which then are supposed to distribute them to smaller churches. The reality is that the small churches have to pay for the extra shipping expense. My parents and a few other families in our church pooled our own money together for a carload; we didn't use tithe funds."

2. Some of the gifts are really cool. "You can tell the stuff they send is new. You've seen my sister's baby doll, right? That came in a shoebox over five years ago. She'd been wanting one so badly!" 

3. Favorite stuff? "Depends on the kid, but most like the crayons/colors that are mixed in with the school supplies, and classics like balls, cars and dolls. Some of the toys you send we haven't seen before!"

4. Sizes run small. "Where my parents were pastoring, up in the mountains, children are under-nourished and quite a bit smaller than kids here (in Argentina). The clothes in the boxes were huge so we switched them around- a shirt meant for a five-year-old we gave to a 9-year-old"

5. Not everything makes it through, but love does. "Some of the boxes have obviously been tampered with by the time they get to us, and there's a bit of an unofficial market on the boxes. But it is exciting to get presents from far away, and to know there are people who care about children and want to share Jesus with them. Thanks!"

Jhoset (and girlfriend Karol =)

Jhoset Pocco Tafur is a pastor's kid from the jungles of Peru and is currently living the urban wilds of Buenos Aires. He's a guitarist, practical joker, and the current reigning seminary ping-pong champion.