Children Receive Their Boxes of Love

Boxes of Love is an annual project of Tree of Lives.  It began as an opportunity for the members of First Presbyterian Church in Norfolk to give generously to our HIV/AIDS patients at Nazareth Hospital during the advent season – a $60 donation that provided food, backpacks and more.  The project is now a Christmas tradition for churches and individuals from Florida to the mid-West.

On December 19, 2011, on the lawn of Nazareth Hospital in Kenya, the annual distribution of Boxes of Love took place.  It was a gloriously beautiful day, filled with great anticipation and prayers of thanksgiving by the 450 HIV/Aids children and teens receiving their Box of Love.  Sixty-two children from the Allamano School also received Boxes of Love, including food and school shoes.  On hand to oversee the festivities were the staff of Holy Family Center and the Administrator of Nazareth Hospital, Sister Clara.

In addition to the distribution of 450 Boxes of Love, this year 150 teenagers were blessed with a special gift of their own – a wrist watch meant to help them adhere to their medication schedules.  With 11 of the 189 teens in the program on the second line regimen, the treatment of last resort, the wrist watches are a symbol of Christ’s desire for healing and wholeness in this place of overwhelming suffering and poverty.

Thank you to the many, many churches and individuals who supported Boxes of Love this year.  May you be blessed abundantly by the love and grace of Christ in 2012.