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Operation Christmas Child

Every year Samaritan's Purse conducts their Operation Christmas Child ministry.

My church is readying for the ministry by displaying a sample box with potential gift items.

This church provides all items to be packed at a packing party, or you can get your own boxes and pack them yourself.

Their goal is 800 boxes, up from last year.

What an amazing ministry!!

Praise God for Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, who developed this project through Samaritan's Purse. 

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Shoeboxes

It's that time of year.  Operation Christmas Child.  My church stacked these empty shoeboxes in one of the lobbies for people to take home and fill.  

The boxes go to a central distribution center, they're checked for appropriate contents, then sealed and sent to various locations around the world. 

The children receive the boxes with options to attend classes to learn about Jesus.

What an awesome ministry conducted every year by Samaritan's Purse which is led by

Franklin Graham.

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End of Track

One set of train tracks in Abilene, TX comes to an end.  Another set goes straight through the downtown area.  

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Union Pacific Train

A train track runs through Abilene, Texas.  This train was parked on the tracks.

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An abandoned Cabin at the Cisco, TX zoo

The zoo in Cisco, TX that was active in the 1920s-1930s had several cabins on the property that could be rented for people to spend time in the country near the zoo exhibits.  The cabins were small, usually one or two small bedrooms, living room, bathroom and a kitchen.  The structures are still standing, but they are empty and windowless and trashed.

One can only imagine what it was like in its hey-day.

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Another animal enclosure

This is one of the animal enclosures in the abandoned zoo in Cisco, TX.  

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Abandoned Animal enclosure

In Cisco, TX there's an abandoned zoo.  It was active in the 1920s-1930s.  As primitive as it seems now, it was state of the art at the time.  It closed because of several suspicious animal deaths within the zoo.

Now there's about a mile of walking trail through what once was the zoo grounds and you can see the remnants of the enclosures and some of the fencing.

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Empty Building

This looks like a pretty interesting building, and even though it seems to be abandoned, there's a chalk drawing on one side and one of the overhead doors on the end is open, so there must be some kind of business--auto repair, machine shop or something of that sort.  

It seems weird that the main part of the building has been vacant and boarded up for years, but there's a business of some sort in one part.  

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Train Wheel

There's a small park in downtown Cisco, TX, and there's an old train car that the kids can climb on and get into.  I've taken photos of this train car before, but today I was trying to get something different from my previous images.  This isn't too exciting, but it kind of tells a story.  

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Fire Escape

An apartment building on the main street of  downtown Cisco, TX. On the back side of the building is this huge, easily navigated fire escape.  

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Tilted Silo

Cisco, Tx.  

I always wonder what this silo is doing in the middle of the sidewalk.  There are also the car barriers but I've never seen a car parked there.  

Just a curiosity.