Jeremy Klaszus

EMS staff load Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes into an ambulance. Some paramedics want EMS to stop supporting the program, which aims to convert children to evangelical Christianity

On November 6, about 50 ambulances snaked their way through Calgary streets, picking up thousands of shoeboxes from 40 public and private schools. Local students had packed nearly 10,000 Operation Christmas Child (OCC) boxes full of toys, school supplies and hard candy destined for children in developing countries. When the shoeboxes reach their destinations, however, they arrive with something not advertised here: “the good news of Jesus Christ.”

Samaritan’s Purse, the U.S.-based Christian “relief and evangelism” organization that runs OCC, uses the shoebox program as a tool to “bring children to Christ.” “We call it Operation Christian Child,” says one female EMS paramedic of nine years who requested anonymity because she opposes the EMS-OCC partnership. “I think a lot of people who work for EMS are completely uninformed as to what Samaritan’s Purse is all about…. They’re shocked when they find out.” Samaritan’s Purse makes little if any mention of its religious aim when partnering with public bodies like schools and EMS.

In a speech given shortly after 9/11, Samaritan’s Purse president Franklin Graham famously described Islam as an “evil” and “wicked” religion. (He later said his comments were misunderstood. “I do not believe Muslims are evil people because of their faith,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.)

Last year, Samaritan’s Purse distributed more than 7.6 million shoeboxes in 105 countries, many of which are predominantly Muslim. Some of the boxes are even distributed in Muslim schools. “Ordinary evangelism in such a school would have been virtually impossible,” says an OCC report, describing the distribution of shoeboxes at a Muslim school in Timbuktu, Mali. “Most of the children and families in Timbuktu have no concept of Christmas.”

The very public EMS-OCC partnership has people both inside and outside the department asking why EMS continues to support an evangelistic charity. (This is the 11th year EMS has partnered with OCC.) “There are a lot of people in EMS who are very much opposed to this, and there are a lot of people very much supporting it,” says Pete Helfrich, a paramedic opposed to the partnership. About four years ago, Helfrich and one of his colleagues tried to get EMS to stop supporting the charity. The two concerned paramedics had a meeting with more than 10 EMS staff, and Helfrich says EMS brass also invited two Samaritan’s Purse staff to the meeting. “We just got railroaded,” he says. “It was a total setup.”

This year, more than 100 off-duty paramedics volunteered to move shoeboxes to Samaritan Purse’s Canadian headquarters in northeast Calgary. Stuart Brideaux, an EMS spokesperson, says the department supports OCC “as a charity,” but doesn’t “endorse or not endorse any other larger religious aspect or religious affiliation.”

Regardless, the religious message gets delivered with the shoeboxes. “This is not respectful international aid. This is proselytizing — using the box as bait,” says Darren Lund, an education professor at the University of Calgary who says he’s received legal threats from Samaritan’s Purse for criticizing the charity. “You’re taking dollar-store junk that was produced in sweatshops for the most part, and exporting North American materialism and consumerism…. It offers nothing to build the strengths of a developing community, of a family, of an economy.”

Samaritan’s Purse’s own website shows the tensions shoeboxes can create in Muslim families and communities. A testimonial tells of a 13-year-old from Kazakhstan who received “a gift from America” from his local Christian church, but was afraid of what his Muslim parents would think. “When they saw me they were angry,” says the testimonial. Eventually, the family converted to Christianity — “thanks to (God) and Jane from America.” “If you’re genuinely giving someone a gift, you will not try and win them away from their parents’ faith,” says Lund. “I find that a very disrespectful way to foster a respect for world religions — particularly in our public schools, where we really, I think, have quite a remarkable model of pluralism.”

Amie Gosselin, a Calgary spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse, says that while the organization doesn’t hide its religious values, it only distributes Christian pamphlets with the shoeboxes when “it’s culturally appropriate.” “Kids receive (boxes) impartially, whether they’re Christians or not or whether they receive a pamphlet or not,” she says. “There are some criticisms of the project, but it’s very miniscule. As a whole, the project is well-received.”

Lorne Jaques, senior director of international development and research at the University of Calgary International Centre, says people latch onto programs like OCC because they’re very tangible. “That has its place in development,” he says. “I haven’t seen any evidence that the sum of all that ‘dollar-store junk’ doesn’t add up to something of value on the other end.... I honestly believe it’s never wrong to be generous.”

Paramedics opposed to OCC, meanwhile, hope EMS will end the partnership and look for a better cause to support. “It’s hard, because it’s not that we don’t want to help children or do good work,” says the female paramedic who spoke with Fast Forward, adding that critics of OCC are often “villainized.” “We absolutely do want to help get behind a cause…. There are a million different efforts out there in the world that are just purely trying to help people — without trying to convert them.”