Operation Holiday Hope
(Photo via richardmasoner, Flickr.com)
Pastor Bill Wilson is Senior Pastor of Metro Ministries and founder of Operation Holiday Hope, a non-profit organization that provides wrapped gifts to children from all over the world. Pastor Wilson, through his organization, has been supplying orphans and low-income families with wrapped brand-new Christmas gifts, often the very first gift a child has ever received. Today, the charitable association is at it again, celebrating their 14th annual Operation Holiday Hope outreach and raising quick cash to fund Christmas gifts for struggling children across the globe.
The Story of Pastor Bill Wilson, a Story like No Other
Pastor Wilson not only provided a reason to smile for many sad, lonely children. He, too, had a life similar to the lives of the children he has, and continues to reach out to.
Wilson was abandoned by his mother at the mere age of 12, almost 50 years ago. Looking back, he remembers sitting on a street corner in St. Petersburg, Florida with his alcoholic mother. “I can’t do this anymore,” his mother had said to him. “You wait here.” So he did. He sat there waiting by that street corner for three long days, but his mother never came back. Thankfully, a man found Bill and took him to his home. His name was Dave Rudenis, a local mechanic and devoted Christian. Not only did Rudenis take the young man under his wings, but he was even willing to come up with some quick cash to pay Bill’s way to a Christian summer camp, despite the fact that his own son was laying in a hospital bed dying from cancer.
“I am the pastor of the largest Sunday school in the world. Why? Because one man, out of his own need, with his own family and their own drama, but still, he still chooses to stop and picked me up, and he put something in motion,” he said through tears in a recent Fox News interview. “That’s why I do what I do.”
Pastor Bill Wilson Making a Difference
In 1980, Pastor Bill Wilson decided to move to one of the toughest areas in New York. He started the Metro Ministries in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn, which has now become the largest Sunday school in the nation. For the past decades, Wilson has kept true to his word and continues to help children in need worldwide. Operation Holiday Hope has grown wondrously, celebrating their 14th annual Operation Holiday Hope outreach, and continues to make a global difference that many will forever remember.
My name is: Rhesa Cook
How can I get the story of Pastor Bill Wilson’s life & what it has lead to
Rhesa Cook
Bill Wilson is a good man and I amazed how quickly the community can band together for a common good.
Thank you for the attribution on the photo. I appreciate that!
Thank ‘you’ for such a wonderful photo. Looking forward to more of you and your works. =)
WOULD LIKE AN ADDRESS TO SEND A DONATION TO YOU I SAW YOU ON FOX NEWS VERY INSPIRING GOD BLESS YOU BILL
To get to the Operation Holiday Hope website, click the link in the first paragraph of this article.
I recently visited Metro Ministries in New York. I went with some staff members to the Bronx and was able to hand out Christmas stockings to the inner city kids. They were incredible. Volunteers were showing up to help at each site returning back to the ministry what had been given to them when they where a child.
Not only did I get to hand out stockings but I was also a part of "Night of 100 Stars". The ladies received carte blanc treatment for the evening. They were given beautiful evening gowns and shoes to match, hair was done, make-up, manicures, massages and a nice dinner. The ladies were changed not only on the outside but also on the inside because of this ministry.
This ministry has it going on! I plan to return and be a part again next year because I was so blessed to be there and see the difference Metro Ministries is making.
All the enchantments of the world are nothing compared to the magical act of giving. Thank you for sharing your experience at Metro Ministries.