Family’s Year of Travel Takes Them to Oaxaca with Shoes for Orphan Souls

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was taken from an Oct. 23 post on the DiRuggiero family’s travel blog.

We have just completed our last full day of shoe ministry in Oaxaca, Mexico.  Our “Shoes For Orphan Souls” mission team (30 of us from Georgia, Tenn., and Illinois) have cleaned and adorned nearly 800 pairs of little feet with new socks and shoes. 

Working with abandoned children collected from the city streets, poor kids in mountain-side villages and orphans in private and government facilities, we have touched, hugged and tickled children that God has not forgotten and sent us to show his love.

As a father, it has been difficult to lie in my hotel bed each night and remember all the faces of kids who are falling asleep with no parent to tuck them into bed.  I praise God that I have experienced these days with my wife and kids.  I wouldn’t trade this past week for any amount of gold or silver. 

Pray that every shoe placed on a foot will never wear thin or fall apart. Pray that the seeds of the gospel will take root in the lives of these precious children. Pray that our family will respond to these experiences with humbleness before God and a desire to know Him more deeply.

Douglas and Karen DiRuggiero and their children, Ben, Kate and Margaret, are spending this school year traveling the world for a month at a time engaging in mission work as a family. They went to Oaxaca, Mexico, on a mission trip with Shoes for Orphan Souls Oct. 15-22.  Read about their travels on their blog at http://onecrazyyear.tumblr.com/.