My name is Luba.  I was born in Moldova in 1993.  As is typical of virtually all Moldovans, my father was a hopeless alcoholic.  My mother probably was alcoholic as well, I‘m not quite sure.  I never met either one of them.  Having incapacitated parents, my grandmother took me in for a few months. The rumor is that both my parents died during the time when I was still very young.  But being blind, and without facilities, my grandmother tied me to a chair so she wouldn‘t lose me.  It was not long before others discovered my condition and ultimately I was put in a state run orphanage for nearly seven years.

At the orphanage, my twin sister and brother, who had already been there four years, and I were miserable.  We were hungry, cold, we felt like no one cared for us.  We and the 100 other abandoned children in there had very little hope for living.  Here was our less than glamorous menu:
    Breakfast - half an apple
    Lunch  -  a bowl of potato soup
    Dinner - nothing
We had no meat, eggs, nor milk - the orphanage workers kept that for themselves and their children. Our bones were weak and our teeth never grew in properly.  Sometimes the leaders of the orphanage opened the gates and told us to find our own food. I personally ate grass, sand, and tree leaves. I even went through trash cans. I mostly remember finding watermelon rinds and eating those along with other composting foods.  I remember one of my finger nail simply falling off.  At the time I didn’t know why they fell off.  I know now that it was due to poor nutrition.

Many of us had lice and were only allowed to bathe once a month.  For the bathing ritual, they would bring in a tub of water and scrub about 20 children through the same water until it was too scummy to continue.  A week later they would do another 20.  We actually were “cleaned up” less than once a month.

Our birthdays were completely uneventful. The orphanage workers told us our updated age and that was it.  Any of us today may have a list of things we want to do or receive or ways we want to celebrate our birthdays.  But if we had a birthday list during our orphanage years, ironically it would have been like this:
No special meal
No birthday song
No cake, no candles
No party
No gifts at all
We did have some fun with each other, but not while the orphanage workers were around!

The same atmosphere blanketed the holidays (that actually didn‘t exist). We didn’t celebrate them, and nothing special happened.  Try to imagine:
Thanksgiving -  no feast, no prayers, no remembrance, no stories
Easter -  no festivity, no singing, no music, no special service
Christmas - no feast, no presents, no carols, no candles, no holly…obviously no family

School offered no relief from the misery either.  We sat in unheated concrete rooms with poor supplies.  Anytime we had a wrong answer we were beaten, they would actually backhand us in the face and scold us, yank on our hair and beat our hands with a stick of wood as further punishment.  When we had a question, the treatment was similar.  We eventually learned to stop asking.  Frankly, I don’t think much learning went on.  We were too frightened.

Amid the dismay, there was one teacher/orphanage helper who was loving to me.  She felt like the only safe person in all the world.  In time though, she was reprimanded for being tender with us. She refused to treat us as if we were stray animals who didn’t matter.   The orphanage leaders sensed the impasse of stubborn love with this one helper, and she was dismissed. We saw her whenever we had the chance to run away from the orphanage.

There was one year - I think it was 1998 - when some Christians came to the orphanage and told us about Jesus Christ. They told us about Jesus feeding large crowds with one lunch, about him healing and forgiving and loving people.  They told us that Jesus was “here” and that he would live in our hearts if we asked him too.  When I heard it, I thought “this is a nice fairytale.“  But at five years old I was not convinced.  If Jesus feeds hungry people and is here, then why am I hungry all the time?  If he heals and loves people, why am I hurting, in despair, and feeling unloved and frightened all the time? 

So though I heard their stories, I didn’t believe in God.  I concluded, “if he was real, I wouldn’t be in this awful place. I would be in a home with loving parents…” That’s what I thought after hearing about Jesus.  The dismay continued.  My needs were not met and I did not have God.  Nor did I want God.

My basic assessment was that if God were real:
I would have a family
There would be plenty of food and I would not ache with hunger
I would not be cold and someone would hold me
There would be clothing for me, more than one ragged outfit
I could bathe and be clean
I would have a restroom to use that didn’t smell like dead rats
I would have someone to care for me

Some teenagers were so devastated that for them there was no point in living. You see, the teenagers, being past 12 years of age, they were considered unadoptable.  They could stay here between 12 and 16 years of age but it’s nothing more than a holding place.  They knew they would soon be sent out come their 16th birthday.  Most girls became “streetwalkers”. Virtually all boys became alcoholics.   Some deliberately ended their lives in suicide at the orphanage.  I never actually saw this happen but my older twin brother and sister did.  As you can fully see, this orphanage was a very traumatizing place to be - for all of us.

My friends still tried to convince me that God existed.  But I would not listen to them.  I hated God for taking my parents away from me.  I hated him for putting me in an orphanage.

In time, more Christians came and visited us.  It was Christmas season 1999 by now, and I was six years, plus six months of age.  This time it was different.  They brought shoeboxes full of presents with them. They handed some of us kids a box of our own.  When we opened them we all were so excited.  I didn’t recognize most of the items in my shoebox gift but I was bewildered with happiness.  I never had felt that before.  My older brother and sister cried and cried.  Yes I had never been given any gift at all in my six years but they had received nothing in 10 years of life!  We all (the 100 of us) were in awe that someone somewhere in the world cared about us so much.

In my “shoebox” that had a picture on it of a Christmas Box with wings, I received:
A Hairbrush
It puzzled me because I had never seen or used one before! Someone showed me.
Toothbrush & Toothpaste
It seemed a strange combination - I thought it was a hair brush with a tube of mint candy!  Yes I was six and had never brushed my teeth before, and needed instruction.
Plastic slinky
that was mesmerizing fun.
Stuffed animal
This was my favorite because I had no toys. The toys I had played with I could never keep. In my mind to this day, this was the first toy I ever called my own.
Candy
I have never had candy. When I received the box, my stomach was hurting so badly that I gulped every piece of it ... I didn’t even taste them!
Watermelon lip balm
It smelled so good.  It had a picture of a watermelon, which was my favorite …so I ate the whole thing!  A Samaritan’s Purse helper meant to show me how to use it, but it was already gone - oh dear.

.

My friends came to me again and told me that the box of presents was proof that Jesus Christ was real.
“You see, Luba? God loves us.  Now do you believe?“ they persisted.  And this time I did believe.  The box of gifts was proof enough for me.  For the very first time, I began to believe that there was a God that loved me and cared for me. I knew it could only be a real God who had moved people to have the heart to buy presents for suffering children that they have never met before.  I had seen people care for their own children before.  But never had I seen anyone care for anyone else’s child who was not their own.  I knew something extra special was happening, and that someone thousands of miles away was caring for me.

The Christmas Shoebox gave amazing joy to the young children and it also gave hope to the teenagers. Even though they were going to be expelled from of the orphanage by 16 to fend for themselves, they now had faith that God would take care of them.  Those who were pondering suicide changed their minds.

It’s hard for people living in a land of plenty to imagine how much we cherished our boxes.  We clung to them like a chest of treasures - because they were.  We took them with us to school, meals, outside, we even took them to bed with us and kept an arm around them as we slept.  To this day I can still remember what I received for Christmas 1999 . Yes, it was all that special.  Do you remember what you received last Christmas?  How about three or five years ago?  Honestly I don’t either because I am well cared for now.  And love and abundance is normal to me.

The Shoebox changed another thing for me.  For the first time I began to pray.  I asked, “dear God, if you are really there, if you are listening and you care, please give me back my parents.”  I asked this because I knew He was real and that He could put me in a family.

How’s this for answered prayer à  It had  been years of lacking in everything for me, and that same day that I prayed, the head of the orphanage came to me and told me that there was a family in the United States that were interested in adopting me. When I heard that, it permanently confirmed to me that there was a God who loved and cared for me and my friends in the orphanage.

For me, the Samaritan’s Purse Shoebox I received in 1999 changed everything.  It convinced me I was loved.  It ended my dismay with life.  It took me straight to God.  It started me in prayer.  I prayed for a family and they came to get me; a Christian family.  In 2002 I understood Calvary and Christ and gave my life to Jesus.  I began serving Him by ten years of age.  At 12 I became aware that it was indeed the Operation Christmas Child ministry that had cared enough to send a gift that changed my life and gave me hope for the very first time.  So I began volunteering my time and energy for Operation Christmas Child.  I  have since spoken to tens of thousands of people inspiring them to pack Shoeboxes and do more for children in despair.  At 14 I went on my first foreign mission trip to South America.  Yes, I live for God.  My plan is to work for OCC as an adult.

Can you pack a shoebox for a child in dire need this year?  Can you pack five of them?  Could you do about one a week all year and touch the lives of over 50 children forever?  How many boxes you make depends on however many lives you want to change for Jesus and eternity?