Reporter’s Notebook:

Piles of boxes, stacked four or five high, three rows deep, lined the front and side of the church’s sanctuary.

One section housed the uniform red and green boxes, another the colorfully wrapped ones, and in the far corner were what appeared to be the less festive presents. The boxes were in clear, Utilitarian-looking containers until viewed close up, when the crayons, stuffed animals and candy peeked out of the see-through sides.

The haul looked like every kid’s Christmas fantasy, but as I was told several times last week, for some of the kids, the shoe box present is the only gift they will get. Some of the kids have never received any gift, volunteer Jim Russell said.

At Refuge Calvary Chapel in Huntington Beach, one of the collection centers for Operation Christmas Child was in full swing, and they let me help out for a bit. The operation is put on by Samaritan’s Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization headed by Franklin Graham.

The community donated more than 9,400 boxes for children around the world. The presents go to children in more than 100 countries affected by natural disaster, war, terrorism, disease, famine and poverty.

“This is one of the highlights of the church every year,” said Geoff Wilson, lead pastor of Refuge’s Coast2Coast Missions Ministry. “This is something we would never stop doing.”

It takes about 60 volunteers during the weeklong collection period to label, stack, count and re-stack the gifts before they are boxed and shipped to a processing center and then sent around the world on trains, planes and, possibly, a camel or two.

My job was simple: I re-tagged the boxes that were incorrectly tagged on the side and re-ticketed them on the top. I also made a new ticket for unmarked boxes. This was my favorite part.

To figure out if the unmarked boxes were for boys or girls and then to guess for which age group the gifts were meant, I got to open the box and rifle though it.

I loved looking through the boxes and seeing what was given. One smelled strongly of mint when opened but didn’t seem to have anything minty inside. With others, it was hard to tell if it was for a girl or a boy. I found myself using antiquated stereotypes to label the boxes — any kind of sports equipment inside, I checked off boy.

Looking through a box, which was filled with a couple of school supplies, some candy, a coloring book and a small toy, it hit me that this is all one child is going to get for Christmas, or the whole year, and they would be thrilled. I thought back to my childhood Christmases where the tree was surrounded by piles of presents and was overcome with gratitude for what I had and admiration for what other people have given.

Everyone I know is tight on money, and I can’t imagine it is any different in Huntington Beach. One of the volunteers told me some residents without jobs still managed to make a box this year.

Wilson had told me Operation Christmas Child symbolizes how a church should function, and walking back into the sanctuary to look one more time at the growing stack of presents, I had to agree.

Reporter BRITNEY BARNES may be reached at (714) 966-4627 or [email protected].