A Project of Miracles - Saddleback Hong Kong Delivers Gifts to Underprivileged

Boxes of love and hope—it was an Easter gift that Saddleback Hong Kong had planned to deliver to the underprivileged in their community. But when a massive fire broke out and threatened to destroy the boxes the night before the distribution ceremony, Pastor Stephen and his congregation feared their efforts might go up in smoke.

PEACE Boxes are a Saddleback tradition. Every Christmas, they are distributed in Southern California to needy children. Saddleback Hong Kong wanted to continue this tradition in their own community at Easter and take it one step further by providing boxes for both adults and children. Through a partnership with local corporate and non-profit sponsors, boxes were filled for the disabled, elderly, sick, homeless, poor, and orphaned in Hong Kong. Amazingly, a program that typically takes six months to complete was finished in five weeks.

Word of the project reached more than 400,000 people. They were invited to pick up a box and fill it with items based on a designated recipient’s age and gender. Children’s boxes included toys, clothing, accessories, snacks, school supplies, and even ear buds. Adult boxes were filled with food, grocery store gift cards, towels, T-shirts, personal care items, small radios, pens, notebooks, plastic mugs, and water bottles. The response from the community was overwhelming—nearly 8,500 boxes were filled.

Thirty students spent two days stacking the PEACE Boxes into a gigantic sculpture that spelled out the word “LOVE” at a local mall where a ceremony was scheduled to be held the day before Easter. When the mall caught fire the night before the ceremony, Pastor Stephen called on his congregation to pray that the boxes would not be destroyed. Miraculously, they were untouched by the blaze. “I was told that the fire stopped at the right place. If it had burned for 10 minutes longer or one yard further, the ceremony would have been canceled,” he reveals.

The ceremony was held as-scheduled with crowds of people holding up their hands and singing songs of praise to the Lord openly in the shopping mall. Pastor Stephen says, “This was a project of miracles. Everything happened just in time in an amazing way.”

Click here to learn more about Saddleback Hong Kong.