According to Rev. Franklin Graham, CEO of Samaritan's Purse and of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the organization will hand out more than 11 million shoebox gifts this year — and 450,000 to children in Ukraine.
Graham, son of the late American evangelist Billy Graham, told guest host Tammy Bruce on "Hannity" Friday that this holiday season, Operation Christmas Child will deliver its 200 millionth box since its inception.
Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child is a project carried out through Samaritan's Purse, which distributes shoeboxes filled with toys, school supplies and hygiene items to children around the world.
Every year, the organization partners with local churches and tens of thousands of volunteers on a global mission to package and dispatch gifts.
During Graham's interview, he sat beside a box containing items for a child. Graham said it represents the "200 millionth in the last 29 years."
"I'm taking this one to the Ukraine later on," he said.
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Graham continued: "This has got to be given over there, and we're sending 450,000 boxes like this to the Ukraine. The children there are suffering this year. They're afraid, they're scared, they're cold, it's dark, and so we're going to show a little bit of God's love."
Graham noted that the most important thing to him that goes in the shoeboxes is, "people pray."
"I ask people to pray for every box before they send it to us. Pray for the child that's going to get the box," Graham said. "I don't know who's going to get it, but God does," he said. "We know that God hears prayer. And to think that… 11 million boxes like this, people are praying for children. Just think what God might do for the children this year, especially for the children in the Ukraine."
Graham shared his Christmas message during the holiday season.
"Christmas is about God's love. It's about God so loving this world that he sent his son, Jesus Christ, from heaven to this earth to take our sins, and that he died and shed his blood 33 years later on a cross for the sins of this world. And if we repent of our sins, turn from those sins and believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be saved. This is what Christmas is all about. It's about God loving us. Jesus Christ didn't come to condemn us. He came to save us."
