Know Better, Do Better

This post has been edited and updated as of September 2024

Have you ever had your bubble burst?

For example, maybe back in the day you tried out for the football team and realized weren’t really the bomb-dot-com quarterback you thought you were?

Or maybe things were looking good for you to have an empty seat next to you on that flight... but then the very last passenger to board was sat next to you?

Or how about the time the missionaries told you the Christmas shoeboxes you meticulously pack each year aren't really the most effective way to do evangelism or provide material aid to kids in third-world countries?

Yeah. We're going there.

First off I have to say this, because there will inevitably be someone who will read this and think we're a bunch of no-good grinches who don't care about the happiness of poverty-stricken children at Christmastime:

We think it's wonderful that so many Americans jump at the chance to give and show love in tangible ways to kids around the world. We love your hearts. We love your generosity. We love your selflessness and your desire to teach your own kids that giving to others should be a priority. So, if you do pack and send shoeboxes, please don't view this post as an attack on your character, because it most certainly is not. We simply want to share facts with you. Also, this is in no way an attack on Samaritan's Purse.

Now, on to the point of this post:

Before we moved overseas, we were always some of the first ones to snatch a couple of OCC shoeboxes from our church. We'd go down to the dollar store and shove all sorts of useful and fun items into these boxes: pencils and sharpeners for school; toiletry items; a doll, toy trucks, some articles of clothing. You know what I'm talking about. Being able to give these things to a child who normally wouldn't receive Christmas presents made us feel so good. Plus, they'd be hearing the gospel, which is really the ultimate goal, right?

Now, fast forward to the day our bubble got burst -

We had been in Zambia for a few months. We were out of the "honeymoon phase" of cultural acclimation and were finally, truly learning and experiencing the realities of what life is like outside of America. When Christmastime drew near and the topic of shoeboxes got brought up, we learned from local believers in our churches that they are never the recipients of these shoeboxes; rather churches belonging to other denominations were most often the recipients. And here's where the bubble bursting came in:

It wasn't that our churches weren't chosen to receive the boxes.

It was that they couldn't afford to receive the boxes.

And here's where I want to pause for just a second to say this - I don't know exactly how packages are received in the rest of the world. My network of friends is not that large. What I do know is that many of our coworkers in various countries agree on this: we don't care for how this ministry plays out in our host countries. And for us in Zambia, here's why:

The understanding of most stateside givers is that when you donate $10 per shoebox, that money ensures the shoebox reaches the recipient free of charge to them. And from my understanding, that's the intent of OCC, that every child gets a box free of charge. The problem, however, comes when some of the "National Teams" (local, national partners who live in-country) aren't vetted and don't have a proper form of accountability.

Stay with me, because I'm circling back around to that point.

If you go to OCC's FAQ page, it's mentioned that they partner with "a National Leadership Team... from various church denominations" in each receiving country. And here's where things get sketchy for many countries in sub-saharan Africa (and other third-world countries around the world, from what I've heard): these National Leadership Team partners are not always born-again believers.

Now, if you've followed our family and our ministry here in Zambia for any amount of time, you'll know that Zambia is, by constitution, "a Christian nation". And yet the amount of corruption here is outrageous. And that's what we're seeing with these boxes. Check out this blog post from a couple who were directly involved in a whole "thing" with these shoeboxes. It's eye-opening, but there's much too much for me to reiterate. But it'll get the point across about the corruption surrounding the distribution of the boxes here in our country.

Anyway, in a nutshell, we have people on the National Team who use these shoeboxes as a means to line their pockets by charging churches absurd amounts of money to receive the boxes. I'm talking, charging the equivalent of thousands of US dollars. And according to an updated post from that same couple I just linked to, when an American with the company came to have a sit-down chat with everyone this side, the person from the National Leadership Team didn't accurately report to the American what was being discussed. Seriously, it was a whole thing. Go read it.

Now, the corruption in itself is reprehensible, but in the name of bubble bursting, let's continue.

According to our local partners here in Zambia, the churches in our area who receive the boxes are mostly (if not all) of denominations that preach a false gospel, mainly a prosperity gospel. How do we know they preach a false gospel? Well, because we've lived here for over a decade and interacted with members of these same churches. Anyway, these prosperity gospel churches are very... prosperous in regards to money. Hence why they can afford the shoeboxes.

So let's break it down a bit (for our context in our area of Zambia):

Corruption at the national level means that the only churches who can afford to pay for shoeboxes are the "wealthier" churches - which in Zambia means mostly prosperity gospel churches. So, if prosperity gospel churches are the main ones in possession of the boxes, then most of the children receiving the boxes are being reached by...

Yeah.

Y'all can infer, right?

Bubble effectively burst.

Corruption. False churches. And I didn't even mention how often these boxes are seen being sold in markets across the African continent (send me a message if you want the photo proof).

Y'all, the reason we share this is not to bash an organization. I said that earlier and I will continue to say it. And it's not to shame any one who does pack shoeboxes.

For us, back in the States it was all feel-good fuzzies thinking that an impoverished child could hear the gospel and receive some gifts at Christmastime thanks to our generosity. But on this side of the ocean things look vastly different. And despite our attempts to shed light on the reality of things, some people in the States just don’t want to hear the truth.

They don't want to hear that the poorest of the poor don't always receive the boxes - that in reality, churches often have to pay money (or rather, a bribe) in order to get their boxes.

They don't want to hear that many of these kids are receiving boxes through churches who don't preach a gospel that leads to a true relationship with Christ, but are preaching a perverted gospel that promises riches and material things when you come to Jesus. Case in point - come to Jesus (ahem, come to our church) and get a box of goodies from America. See you next year, kids!

That really ought to make you cringe.

And, slightly off topic, but would it surprise you to know that people in Zambia celebrate Christmas by going to church and worshiping? Doesn't matter if it's Tuesday or Friday or Sunday - Christmas Day is for celebrating the birth of Christ with our church family, not for sitting around opening present after present all morning.

"Good on them! That's the way it should be!" you might say. Then why in the name of all things holly jolly do we insist on exporting our commercialism and materialism to them in the form of packed shoeboxes?

I know, I know. We just want to show love in a tangible way. And that’s great! But bear with me for a second, because I'm about to make you cringe just one more time before I share with you more effective ways to show love to someone in a third-world country:

That same couple whose site I linked to earlier calculated costs of filling and shipping a shoebox versus what that same amount of money could purchase in-country. At the time of their writing (a few years ago), each box cost on average $30 (contents plus shipping). But here are some things they noted that $30 could have bought instead:

60 thousand liters of potable drinking water

or

100 kg of maize meal (enough to feed a family of 5 for 4 months)

or

school fees and uniforms for 6 elementary school kids for an entire year

or

2 breeding goats

or

6 insecticide treated mosquito nets

or

15 gallons of soy beans

or

wages for 3 weeks of farm work

Cringing now? Got your bubble burst like we did? Our motives may be pure, but y'all, I don’t think it’s too presumptuous to suggest that we need to be willing to make changes when we see a more effective way of doing things. Would you agree?

Some people might read this and say, "Well, they still deserve something on Christmas.” And so you'll keep on packing those shoeboxes year after year because it makes you feel good to know that a little girl somewhere across the ocean received a Christmas doll in the middle of April. Okay. Like I said at the beginning, this post is in no way an attack on you or a “shame on you” post if you pack shoeboxes.

But, maybe you're reading this and you're thinking, "If these boxes aren't the best way to get the gospel to a child and simultaneously bless them in a tangible way, then what can we do?" - read on, my friend, because I have a few suggestions:

Suggestion 1: Find yourself a missionary. Hi! Nice to meet you. We're missionaries and would love to partner with you. We’ve got lots of opportunities for “mercy ministries“ that we’d love for you to be involved with. And if you don't want to partner with us, no hard feelings! We know missionaries in countries all around the world and would love to connect you to someone who lives in a country you're drawn to or to a missionary who is ministering in ways that we may not be. Just let us know and we'll hook you up because we love to see Kingdom advancement happening all around the world!

Suggestion 2: Find an organization that has "boots on the ground" partners. Hi, again! We just so happen to know an AMAZING organization called Send Relief that not only offers a gift catalogue for you to browse - in case you want to gift a family with some farm animals so they can make a living, or buy some toys and games for the kids in a family of refugees looking to start a new life - but they also offer mission trip opportunities in North America, ministry guides to help you figure out how to identify needs in your own community, prayer guides to help your pray for situations around the world, and a list of projects that you can help fund that allows partnering missionaries to meet physical needs that lead to open doors for the gospel.

Suggestion 3: Trust that the missionaries or ministry partners from Suggestions 1 and 2 know what they're talking about. Let them guide you to do things that will be the most effective. We live in these places, we know the people, and we know the culture. Please, just trust us. I know many of us don't want to take the "easy way out" and just give money, because you want to physically put your hands on things and feel involved, but honestly, sometimes the most effective thing you can do is use that $30 to buy a family two goats instead of a box of toys. And if you can't fly over to do ministry with us in person, we promise to send you pictures of what your $30 purchased. Promise.

Suggestion 4 (and I really like this one for those of you who are die-hard shoebox fans): If you still feel strongly about shoeboxes, then make it local! Pack boxes and distribute them in your own community. That way, you can be the ones to hand them out; you can be the ones to share the true gospel with kids in your own town; you can be the ones who are there for follow-up and discipleship.

Some years ago we shared this same information to a church that was looking for more effective ways to do ministry besides filling shoeboxes. As we began to list the things $30 could purchase in our local context, the gasps heard across the room almost made me tear up. And when we finished, one sweet lady said the same thing we said several years ago: “We didn’t know.”

We just want all of you to know.

Someone in that same church has a motto: Know better, do better. And I can’t think of a better way to end this post.

You know, it took me several years to say anything about this because I was worried how it would be received. And yeah, there were a few people who sent me private messages basically saying "shame on you" (even though I was very clear that I was not trying to ridicule anyone or any organization). Their message was loud and clear: shame on you for dissing such an honorable man and organization. But what I heard was actually this: Shame on you for teaching us the realities of what things are like outside of our American bubble and then bursting it.

We need to be ok with having our bubbles burst from time to time, because sometimes finding out that we’re not quarterback material leads us to finding out that we are the bomb-dot-com as a linebacker, to revisit the example from earlier. And when we realize that we are more effective doing something different, we should change, shouldn't we?

Know better, do better.