Maya sifted through the pieces of smashed plates and teacups that littered the ground where her dinnerware cabinet once stood. She held up a shard of fine porcelain.

“Several of these dishes have been in my family for many years,” she explained through an interpreter. “All we worked for our whole lives is gone. We lost everything.”

Room by room, Maya led me through the rubble, pointing to where the family’s heirlooms and furniture had been arranged. She tried hard not to cry. This had been her home for the past 18 years, the place where she and her husband were raising their two children and taking care of her mother-in-law.

Their comfortable existence was shattered one fateful day in August when the conflict between Russia and Georgia reached the village of Karaleti.

“The Russian soldiers came in trucks,” Maya recalled. “I watched and cried as I saw my house on fire. The soldiers seemed to enjoy seeing it burn.”

Maya and her mother-in-law lay in the grass in the backyard apple orchard, out of sight of the soldiers. What they witnessed was unimaginable. Maya survived the ordeal; her mother-in-law did not. The shock caused her to have a stroke, and she did not recover.

Dozens of homes in Karaleti were destroyed in the conflict, some like Maya’s by fire, others by bombs. In another section of town we saw the results of the immense power unleashed by one of those 500 kilogram explosives. A bomb that had been intended for the central gas pipeline that runs through the village missed its target and hit a house. Fortunately no one was inside. The house was obliterated and in its place was a deep, 35-foot long gash in the earth.

While we stood around the hole taking pictures, our attention was diverted by a plume of smoke rising from a distant field. We were told a landmine had detonated. Being here was becoming a little too real.

As we toured the devastation in other small communities and in the city of Gori (Stalin’s birthplace), our team handed out shoe boxes to as many children as we could. It amazed me how quickly children show up for even an impromptu distribution. The parents are so eager to see their little ones receive any opportunity for joy in their otherwise bleak circumstances.

On Friday, we held a distribution for 327 boys and girls at a former military barracks in the town of Koda. What was once used as housing for military families has now become an oasis for 1,370 refugees.

Even here they cannot escape continuing brutality from the war.

I noticed a small photo of a young man pinned to the sweater of a mother whose child was about to receive a shoe box. An older woman next to her had the same photo pinned to her dress. Curious, I asked them who the man was.

Nato, the younger of the two women, said it was her husband’s 29-year-old brother, Imeda. Two days ago, he and another police officer were in their patrol car on a back road when their vehicle hit a landmine. Now his wife and 4-year-old son have lost much more than just their house.

The older woman was Imeda’s aunt. Despite her grief, she wanted her 8-year-old son to receive the gift from Operation Christmas Child that he had been looking forward to for days. It would break her heart to break his.

Nato felt the same way. She brought her 2-year-old daughter Solome to the distribution. The toddler’s blonde curls bounced as much as she did when she grasped her shoe box.

“We are glad for these gifts from the children in America,” Nato said. “Most of all, we are glad you are standing beside us today with understanding in your hearts. That means more than the material gift. Thank you.”

As we left, I thought about what Nato had said. So many times this week I have felt that we can’t possibly do enough to alleviate the suffering of the people in Georgia. They are caught up in the greatest crisis of their lives. Many said that their hope in God is what keeps them going from one day to the next.

No, we can’t bring back Maya’s house or a 29-year-old husband and father whose family misses him desperately. But we can reassure them of their heavenly Father who loves them and will see them through these hard times. The shoe boxes are a symbol of the ultimate love gift that we celebrate at Christmas—the birth of the Savior. That’s the hope we have in what sometimes seems like a hopelessly hurting world.

There’s one more precious gift that we can share with the people here, and that’s a willingness to simply listen. Yesterday after Maya showed me the ruins of her home, she took note of all the people who had come to help her family in numerous ways. Realizing that people cared gave her renewed strength.

“Thank you for hearing my story,” she said, a smile beginning to form across her face.

It seemed like such a little thing, but taking the time to listen made her feel valued and was a ray of sunshine in her day.

And perhaps, at least for today, that is enough.

Samaritan's Purse , Georgia , Operation Christmas Child , Bringing Hope to Shattered Lives