Operation Christmas Child is an international project of North Carolina-based Samaritan's Purse. Each year, it provides millions of gifts to children around the world, delivered in brightly-colored "shoeboxes" along with a gospel-based message of faith and hope.
Two decades ago, 9-year-old Fiji resident Sakiusa "Zac" Vakadewatabua received one of those boxes. On Friday, he'll be at Northwood Temple in Fayetteville to share how that experience helped shape his life. Today, Zac is youth director at Clay Center United Methodist Church in Clay Center, Kansas. He spoke with CityView Executive Editor Bill Horner III about his OCC memories and the impact his shoebox gift made on his life. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Describe what life was like for you growing up in Fiji …
I didn’t know we lived in a poor community until I came to the United States. I look back and I think, “Oh my gosh, yes, we lived below the poverty line.” My father is a minister, and I come from a long line of pastors in my family … my grandfather and great-grandfather. And almost every week I'm in church. But growing up in the islands, my father only got paid $1, $1.25 an hour to raise us five kids …
The old church structure became our home — the one that gets blown away during cyclone and hurricane season in Fiji. We’d use mom’s cooking pots to catch the rain inside the house because we didn’t want the floor to get wet — that’s where we slept, where we ate. No furniture. We used curtains to separate sleeping spaces.
And whatever mom cooked, we ate there on the floor. With the youth in my church now, I always tell them, “You have choices.” I didn’t have choices. We ate whatever was fixed, and that’s all we’re going to have.
I don’t know how mom and dad did it. I was blessed to be in school. You used plastic bags to carry your books and to put on your feet. Or you’d just go barefoot. I’m so blessed now to own a car, to have a room, to have a roof that does not leak, to have three meals a day, and to see children have school supplies in abundance. I’m always trying to instill that with the kids I encounter every week — to be grateful for what you have. You have no idea how blessed you are.
How did your church get chosen to be served by Operation Christmas Child?
I was exposed to Operation Christmas Child when I was 9 years old. My mom would lead our prayer meeting every Monday afternoon, and we’d invite friends over. But she was also a Sunday School teacher, and on Sundays, we’d have a morning devotion at 4 or 5 a.m., and then you’d have the main service at 10, and a sundown service at 5 p.m., and dad’s preaching. Well, on this Sunday, the church steward stood up and called out the announcements for the week, and the first thing they said was, “There’s going to be something special going on tomorrow, on Monday afternoon.”
So that's when I found out mom already knew what this was going to be — and that turned out to be Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts for our church. And she told me that I was going to be the very last child to receive this surprise gift, and only if there were enough. We invited other kids from the community, and she was thinking about those kids, that they’d get to receive their surprise gift before me.
What do you remember about the shoeboxes being handed out, and about what happened when it came your turn?
In my culture, gifts are not really a thing — buying gifts and presents for birthdays or for Christmas or special occasions, we don’t do that. Yes, we celebrate Christmas and birthdays, but gifts are out of reach, financially. We normally eat and invite family to come over.
But that year we were told we might have a surprise gift. That’s something we’d only watch on TV during American Christmas — kids getting to open gifts. We got to the church and all I remember were all those big brown boxes. And then the names were being called out. And then just the joy — oh my gosh, the joy, the chaos and screaming and the showing off of the gifts they got.
I was trying to be happy for them. My mom's doing all of this giving, but at the same time, I was waiting for my turn. When is it going to be Zac's turn?
And then mom said “Sakiusa” — that’s my real Fijian name — she said, “Sakiusa!” And then I went up and I grabbed ahold of mine and I said, “Oh my gosh, it is me! This is not a dream, it's real! I can touch this!”
So I open my shoebox and see all the school supplies, the Crayons and coloring books, all those toys. I’m thinking, “I only see this in stores,” and then you want to touch them …
And yes, I got that yellow yo-yo, and it just made me feel that it was all real. To know that somebody thought of me when packing that shoebox. This is churches from America that packed this, and somebody thought of me while doing it.
This is what I love about the mission of Operation Christmas Child — it demonstrates God’s love tangibly. I felt like this is how the love of God is. I got to touch it, see it and feel it.
And the joy, that love of God was demonstrated through that shoebox — not just for me, but for all those kids. What a story that God orchestrated through that outreach event. And now we are broadcasting that back into the U.S. I'm the fruit that's telling churches, “Here, you have no idea how you've impacted my life.”
What seeds did those gifts plant in your life?
I love that question. I believe the seed that God planted in me back then was his grace. I always quote this scripture — Paul says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
None of those kids, none of us, deserved new toys. We were fine with our Coca-Cola bottles that we used as a rugby ball. Or we used stones and rocks to play with. That was fun. But the real grace of God came to Fiji, I think, through Operation Christmas Child, and gave us real “ordinary” kids’ toys.
So I felt that grace manifested in those shoeboxes. It came into my community. We shared the toys that we got. We played together.
So I've always quoted that scripture. God gave us His Son to die on the cross because none of us are deserving of that love. But through his grace, he gave us His Son. So through grace, there was a family or church that packed those shoeboxes and prayed over them. I know my shoebox was being prayed over because it did have a spiritual and eternal impact — that one shoebox! Now I'm back in the U.S., telling this story, the story that the seed planted to me was God’s grace.
What's your official role with OCC?
I'm a national spokesperson for Operation Christmas Child. In 2021, I was hired as the youth director here [at the church in Clay Center]. Our church coordinator came to me one afternoon and said “Our youth group sponsors Operation Christmas Child.” I sat here and just cried, and I said, “God, is this the church that sent my yo-yo? Is this it?”
And I told the kids that day, that Wednesday night. And I said, “Have you guys ever met a child who was impacted by this mission that you love to do at the end of every year?” They had no clue, no idea. And then I said, “I was one of the children that received a shoebox.” And that really caught fire with them and changed their perspective.
And not just the kids, but the church and the whole community. And you know how small Clay Center is … everybody, and I mean everybody, supports it overwhelmingly. So that year, in 2021, I packed my first shoebox. I was very emotional. I said I personally have a story about the impact of this; this means so much to me.
I had one of the moms who came that year buy yellow yo-yos for all the shoeboxes. Our numbers grew to 117 boxes, and last year they did 414. The youth here in Kansas know the ministry, so they’re on fire.
They know it impacted their youth director. And what they’re doing is for God, and it’s not just Christmas, in a way, but it’s a year-round thing now. I think they get the heart of Operation Christmas Child. We’re so blessed here in the United States, and through us, we can be a manifestation of God’s grace, to demonstrate His love to others on the other side of the world. Those kids get that, and they want to be those hands and feet.
What kinds of things will you share when you speak here on Friday?
I'll share, of course, that story of how we see the impact of just one shoebox.
The thing for me is that I was the last child in my outreach event. Can you imagine if that last church, or that last person, never packed that last shoebox? So I always want to emphasize on the first one, on the last one, or one more — do it for one more. When you reach your limit, when you reach your end, the end of your energy, do just one more.
I was that last child, and I find it humbling, I guess, that God used that last child, that outreach 20 years ago, here in America — that somebody packed that one more shoebox, it reached the ends of the earth, and it came to Fiji.
For someone who is thinking about taking part in Operation Christmas Child, what would you say to them about why supporting it is so important?
Working with kids in youth ministry, I always tell them about the Great Commission, when Jesus talked about “going to all the nations” in the Book of Matthew. You know, the word he used was not “nations” as in a country, as we understand it, but rather as groups of people, as ethnic groups.
If you think of countries, I think we’ve almost reached all the countries with Samaritan’s Purse [the sponsoring organization of Operation Christmas Child]. But if you go with what Jesus really meant, with groups of people, I think there are between 6,000 and 7,000 unreached people, groups who have never heard of the name “Jesus,” and have never known about the love of Jesus.
So when a child receives their shoebox gift, they are introduced to Jesus, and they come to learn about faith, and the resurrection, and if a child learns, then mom learns and dad learns, and that’s when you change a community, and they can then reach other communities.
With Operation Christmas Child, and with partnering with local churches and ministers, and working with those kids, we’ll see a changed community when we open that door. It might take a while, but we strive on and we keep preaching the Gospel and demonstrating God’s love through tangible gifts to children. So I encourage others who are interested to be a part.
