Fortunately, that was what the VBS story centered on at the homes we visited, so I felt especially sincere in the message we were sending to the kids. We were there to not only provide the children with the material support, but also emotional support, never letting them forget about God’s love for them.

This trip was so beautiful, but it’s hard to express in words the things I experienced this week: How I couldn’t have asked for a more loving, supportive and genuine group of people found in our Peruvian staff. How the simple act of painting a young girl’s nails brought such joy in being attended to. How the tighter squeeze in holding hands or receiving a hug spoke louder than words. How saying goodbye to each child at each home slowly broke apart your heart. How such unimaginable poverty did not crush the spirit of its inhabitants or how some ancient buildings in the Andes could literally steal your breath away. I quickly understood the intense magnitude of God’s love for his creation, and how much He wants us to love Him in return.

All of God’s creation deserves compassion, and I pray that the children we served will not forget that the love we showed them was not our own, but God’s. There’s beauty in freedom even if one doesn’t have it in a physical sense. We are free to love God and to find joy even in the worst of situations, and I will always remember the beauty of so many kids yearning to experience it.

I pray in their darkest nights and loneliest hours that they will think of the proof that love is real, that it can be found through Him, that they too can look upon God’s giving hands in a shoe print. I will never forget the children I met, Peruvian staff, or the group of fellow Buckner team members who will all be leaving Peru with their hearts in the hands of 800 kids, their stories forever in our thoughts.

I’d like to close with a quote I heard during the trip, “Hope is the unlikely, even the impossible, becoming absolute.” I pray that if the kids I met got anything from our time spent with them besides a new pair of shoes, it was the hope that comes from living in the hands of God.

Megan Levers went on a mission trip to Peru with Shoes for Orphan Souls in August 2011. She lives in the Dallas area.

Go on a mission trip with Shoes for Orphan Souls! Check out the trip calendar here.

When their drive ended, all five classes took a field trip to the Shoes for Orphan Souls warehouse to see where their shoes would go and to learn how to process shoes for shipment. They learned a lot and had plenty to say about their experience:

What was the most interesting thing you learned when you volunteered at the warehouse?

“The most interesting thing I learned was how many people in our world need shoes. The warehouse was so big and there were LOTS of shoes!” Asher Johnson, Mrs. Taylor’s class

“That so many kids and grownups don’t have clothes.”  Dalai Biju, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“Some people don’t have enough money to get all the things they need.”  Rakshaa Potaraju, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

Why is it important for kids to wear shoes?

“It is important for kids to wear shoes because when you don’t have shoes your feet will get hurt. When kids have shoes they can go to school and have hope for their future!” Akshita Yadavalli, Mrs. Taylor’s class

“So they can go to school and learn.” Julia Balazy, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“So they don’t get blisters.”  Jordan Ashby, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“When kids don’t wear shoes their feet could burn. Their feet will get hurt like a bad cut. That happens because they don’t have any shoes on.” Lillian Tran, Mrs. Taylor’s class

“So they don’t get sick or glass in their feet.” Andrew Schultz, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

How will the kids feel when they get their new shoes?

“They’ll get really, really happy.” Carter Kincaid, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“They will feel loved.” Luis Badillo, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“I think kids will feel excited when they get their shoes!” Jia Rosenbaum, Mrs. Taylor’s class

“When the kids get their shoes they will jump up and down and say ‘YEA!’” Brandon Wenzel Mrs. Taylor’s class.

What can kids do when they have their new shoes that they couldn’t do before?

“Go to school.” Rolen Glover, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“They can play without their feet getting hurt.” Lauren Castle, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“When kids have shoes on, they can go on bumpy roads, run, walk on sticky places, step on wood chip and not get hurt!” Trinity Hunt, Mrs. Taylor’s class

What did you like most about being a volunteer?

“Putting the rubber bands around the shoes.” Josephine Liew, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“We got to write notes and put them in the shoes.”  Rakshaa Potaraju, Mrs. Sumrall’s class

“I wrote a note to put in the shoes. My note said ‘I hope you like your shoes!’” Shreenaya Prabu Mrs. Taylor’s class

“The best part about working at the warehouse was wrapping up the shoes in a rubber band—I still remember how to do it!!” Alexander Chaar Mrs. Taylor’s class

Thank you to Mrs. Sumrall’s class, Mrs. Taylor’s class, Mrs. Javier’s class, Mrs. Thorn’s class and Mrs. Johnson’s class for helping bring hope to orphans and vulnerable children around the world!

By Lauren Hollon Sturdy
Buckner International

Haven Godwin is a dancer, a gymnast, a swimmer and a cyclist. She’s also a budding philanthropist who decided to forego gifts for her 7th birthday this year to collect shoes for orphans and vulnerable children.

She’s a determined girl who knows what she wants. When she saw a TV segment about a girl who collected 300 shoes for orphans for her birthday, she knew she had to do the same thing. She learned about the Shoes for Orphan Souls Birthday Club and sat down and wrote a letter about her birthday wish. With the help of her mother, Mary, Haven typed her letter, made copies and took it to school and church to pass out to all her friends:

Hello. My name is Haven Godwin. I am 6 years old. I want my birthday wish to come true. Please send a new pair of shoes so that I can collect them and send them to the orphanage. These kids only get one pair of shoes a year.

I watched a video and I heard that a kid had to find food out of the dumpster. So be thankful that we have everything that we need. These kids don’t have moms and dads. The moms and dads couldn’t take care of them for some reason so they left them at the orphanage.

That is my wish for my birthday instead of presents for myself, because I have everything that I want—my family and the toys I already have. I would like to collect at least 300 pairs of NEW shoes for the kids.

My 7th birthday is March 4 so that is the deadline to turn in shoes. Please ask your parents to send in a new pair of shoes by this date.

Love,
Haven Godwin

She wasn’t bashful about spreading her message. She announced her shoe drive to the whole school during a morning assembly, and the principal invited her to give updates on her progress over the intercom during morning announcements. The administration and teachers were supportive of the drive, and the other students looked forward to hearing how many shoes she had collected each day.

The drive was also announced at the February Parent-Teacher Organization meeting. When the Godwins pulled into their driveway later that evening, people were outside their house, waiting to give them shoes.

“When people heard about her goal, everybody wanted to contribute,” Mary said. “Even our pest control man – when he came to spray the house he saw the pile of shoes in the floor and asked about it and wanted to help.”

For her birthday party, Haven wanted an “orphanage cake.” She designed a yellow, blue, white and green three-tiered confection with barefoot children drawn in icing around the middle tier and a big shoe on the bottom. When the baker found out why Haven wanted such an unusual design, she took up a collection and had shoe-buying money waiting when Haven and her mother came to pick up the cake.

Haven’s birthday party was March 4, and by the end of her drive, she had collected between 300 and 320 pairs of shoes. Though she was happy to have met her goal, she’s looking forward to the next project.

“Now that we’ve done shoes, next year is toys, and then clothes, and then money to buy food,” she said. She said eventually she’d like to go on a mission trip to deliver shoes and visit the children in person.

By Lauren Hollon Sturdy
Buckner International

TYLER, Texas—Despite his age, Zack Lawson sounds as professional and polished as if he’s been in the “real world” for years. He’s been dealing with school administrations, tax forms and presentations a lot lately, which could have something to do with the 17-year-old’s mature demeanor.

Lawson recently wrapped up a 10-school shoe drive, a project that took eight months from inception to completion.  The drive fulfilled one of his requirements for the International Baccalaureate Programme, a college preparatory program for high school students that stresses global understanding and community service. Shoes for Orphan Souls appealed to Lawson as the focus for his service project because it benefits children and has a global reach.

When he looked into ways others had conducted shoe drives, he realized a citywide drive or one involving local radio stations was probably out of reach. But his dad worked in a local elementary school and Lawson knew they were working on rallying around service through Rachel’s Challenge, focusing on teaching the kids kindness and compassion through service.

He thought Shoes for Orphan Souls would go over well in schools because the focus is children, and it meshed perfectly with the themes of kindness, compassion and generosity that schools were already emphasizing.

“It would give the schools a tangible rallying point for this idea of Rachel’s Challenge,” he said.

He presented the project to the elementary school counselors at one of their monthly meetings. They all loved it.

Cutting through the red tape and paperwork to get the project approved by the district wasn’t so easy, but Lawson persevered, getting the required signatures, making phone calls and recruiting the help of his International Baccalaureate supervisor.

In the end, the shoe drive was approved and 10 elementary schools out of 17 in the district participated. They collected 500 pairs of shoes, 1,026 pairs of socks and 218 pairs of shoelaces. He got some monetary donations, too.

“I had no idea how to file the monetary donations, buy shoes and do tax returns,” he said. “My mom helped me do all that, and she helped me maximize the money to purchase more shoes.”

On January 14, they loaded down a pickup truck with 31 boxes filled with shoes, socks and laces, and Lawson and his parents drove it from Tyler to the Shoes for Orphan Souls warehouse in Dallas.

“It was nice to bring closure to something I initially doubted would ever get off the ground,” he said. “January 14th was a date I’d been looking forward to ever since I packed the last shoe and counted the last sock. I’ll miss all the wonderful teachers and students I’d met in the course of promoting the drive and collecting the donations. Without them, these past 8 months wouldn’t have been the success that it was.”

After he graduates this spring, Lawson hopes to attend college at the University of Texas at Austin, where he plans to study biomedical engineering.

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/.

By Lauren Hollon Sturdy
Buckner International

DALLAS – Outside the Dallas Convention Center, thousands of people huddled together, wrapped in blankets, waiting for 8:30 a.m. when the doors would open for the 8th Annual Christmas Gift 2011.

“We were told that some people even came the night before and camped out to make sure they had a good spot in line,” said Brittany Sumrall, volunteer coordinator for Shoes for Orphan Souls®, the largest humanitarian aid project of Buckner International. “This event fills such an important need in our community.”

Christmas Gift, an event run by Operation Care International, served more than 8,000 homeless people, veterans and low-income families last weekend with gifts, new clothes, warm meals, haircuts and new shoes. Buckner has participated in the event since it began in 2004 and donated more than 4,500 pairs of new shoes this year.

“The shoes provided are an incredible help to this ministry,” said Susie Jennings, founder of Operation Care. “They are the lifeline in the foot washing area.”

Jennings founded Operation Care in 1993 to provide for the physical needs of impoverished children and the homeless. Every December the organization partners with charities, churches, corporate and small business sponsors, individual sponsors and donors to hold the “nation’s largest Christmas party for the homeless.”

“Partnership is vital to this ministry,” Jennings said. “Each of our partners functions as the hands and feet of Jesus.”

Volunteer help is also essential. It took more than 3,000 volunteers to pull off Christmas Gift this year. At the foot washing station, kneeling before rows of chairs with paper towels, wet wipes and sanitizer, volunteers washed guests’ feet and fitted them with new socks and shoes.

“I was nervous about signing up for foot washing, but I felt it was where I should spend my time,” one volunteer said. “I’m so glad I went through with it. It’s been emotional and life changing.”

Buckner collects shoes year-round through its worldwide Shoes for Orphan Souls project. Since 1999, Shoes for Orphan Souls has collected and distributed more than 2.2 million pairs of new shoes to 74 countries around the world. About 20 percent of shoes collected by Buckner help vulnerable children and families in the U.S.

“Susie told me that every guest that needed a pair of shoes received a pair of shoes,” said Mike Julian, logistics manager for the Buckner Center for Humanitarian Aid. “That is a blessing!”

To learn more about the events and ministries of Operation Care International, visit their website at http://www.opcare.org/. For information about Shoes for Orphan Souls, visit http://shoesfororphansouls.org/.

By Sarah Whitman
Times Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, October 2, 2011

Listeners know her as Carmen, the cheerful female voice of the Morning Cruise on the Joy FM, 91.5 in Tampa. For nearly a decade, she has chatted with and about top Christian music artists on air from 6 to 10 a.m. weekdays. In some church circles, she is a celebrity.

To orphans 1,000 miles away, she is a stranger with a gift.

Carmen Brown, of New Tampa, recently returned from Honduras, where she spent a week delivering more than 8,000 pairs of shoes, donated by listeners, to children in need. It is her fourth year traveling with Buckner International’s Shoes for Orphan Souls ministry.

Trip one, she went alone to Guatemala. Trips two and three, she brought a few fans and friends to Peru and Guatemala. This year, about 100 people applied to go along, and 32 made the journey to Honduras.

Times staff writer Sarah Whitman spoke with Brown, 40, about transforming listeners of WLPJ-FM 91.5 into missionaries and seeing the world with new eyes.

Is there a readjustment period returning home from a trip like this?

There is definitely a re-entry period. I came back exhausted, slept 14 hours and cried, literally, for the next two days. I cried for the children there, and I cried for our kids, too. There is so much wealth in this country. They don’t even know they need Jesus.

Why do this? What made you decide to take that first trip?

I was having a casual (off-air) conversation with one of our artists and he told me about this organization he was working with, Buckner International. He said, “You’re going on this trip.” And I went. And I saw. And no amount of pictures can paint that picture.

I grew up in government housing on food stamps, and I thought I knew poverty. Then, I saw true poverty. These kids don’t even have shoes.

One of the first little girls, I put socks on her feet and handed her another pair. She said, “Dos?” She was so grateful. And I’m thinking, my kids lose socks in the dryer.

What is it like leaving the day-to-day behind?

It’s time to unplug. Sometimes your cell phone works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Going to the orphanages, being with the kids, it brings you back to the basics of humanity.

How do you bring what you do to the orphans?

They know what radio is, but they don’t have radios. The last three years the band, Mike’s Chair, has come with us. They play songs, and you can really see the healing power of the music.

People have this romanticized idea about orphans, and a lot of times with the younger kids it’s that way. They hug on you and are so happy you’re there. But when you go into a girls’ home where the girls are 12 to 18 years old and they have been sexually hurt by their dads, or brothers, or uncles, a new pair of shoes isn’t going to heal those girls. A new pair of shoes is almost an insult. But you can see how the music affects them. They hear the message.

Do you keep in touch with the children?

I’ve kept in touch with probably half a dozen.

There was a girl in Peru who really loved my Joy FM hat, but it had my name on it. When I got back, I was able to get her a hat and send it to her.

Has serving as a missionary changed your world view?

The world feels a lot smaller to me. The Gospel is more than the American version of how we see it. I used to think it was going to church on Sunday. Now I understand that pure religion in the eyes of the Lord is taking care of the widows and the orphans. There’s a difference between hearers of the word and doers of the word. The Gospel has a whole new meaning.

Coming off such an emotionally charged experience, how do you go back to being cheerful Carmen on the radio?

A lot of prayer. I cry a lot. I journal a lot. It’s a process. There’s a verse in John where God says I will not leave you as orphans. I have to rest in the knowledge that God loves them. As much as I am hurting, God loves them and hurts for them more than I do.

I came back, and my husband’s here. My daughter still needs me to drive her to basketball practice. I’m stepping back into life, maybe even a little faster than I’d like to.

To read more about Carmen Brown’s trip and Shoes for Orphan Souls, visit thejoyfm.com/carmen.

“The turnout was wonderful,” said Julia Stark, program manager of Shoes for Orphan Souls. “It was much, much higher than we expected, and it was such a fun community atmosphere. It was great to see families come together and run together to raise awareness about the needs of orphans and vulnerable children who go without shoes.”

The event raised money to benefit children in Africa, and participants said they had a great time doing it.

“We received many, many compliments from people telling us how much they enjoyed the event,” said Rachel Garton, director of Shoes for Orphan Souls. “We also heard a lot of great things from the runners about how beautiful the running trails were at Andy Brown Park.”

The male overall winner was Clint Bell, with a time of 15:58.00. The female overall winner was Susan Whiting, who finished with a time of 19:53.00.

Several dozen participants ran barefoot, Stark said. Jason Hoofnagle was the male overall barefoot winner, coming in at 23:14.00. The female overall barefoot winner was Toni Marshall, with a time of 29:12.00.

“We look forward to hosting a race again next year and to building on the great support we received from the community,” Stark said.

To see photos from this year’s race, check out the race photo album on the Shoes for Orphans Souls Facebook page at www.facebook.com/shoesfororphansouls.

Editor’s Note: This testimony is from an excerpt of the “Weekly Word From Your Pastor” e-mail sent to members of First Baptist Church of Sunnyvale, Texas. Their church held a shoe drive on Oct. 16.

What a blessed day we had last Sunday. Everyone looked comfortable in your “Game Day” jerseys, and there was such excitement about not only being at church, but making the world a better place by bringing shoes to be given away. I was so moved when I saw our church family bring over 800 pair of shoes and lay them on the altar. I want to share part of a letter I received Sunday.

Bro. Charlie,

I just want to let you know how proud I am of our church. As I watched the people line up to take, not just one pair, but three or four and even stacks full of boxes of shoes to the front of the church, I couldn’t fight back the tears from rolling down my face.

I was raised at Buckner Orphans Home from the age of 6 months up to my early teens. I remember when I was in the home, we got only one pair of shoes in the fall. They were for school and church, or if you were “lucky” enough to have parents come visit you on the first Sunday of the month, you could wear your shoes. Any other time you were to go barefoot.

Now that I am an adult, every time I hear of a child from a broken home or a family down on their luck, the first thing I notice if I have a chance to meet them is the shape of the children’s shoes. I am this person that still remembers how it feels to get a new pair of shoes and remembers how it feels to get to put them on and try and see if they are your size!

God bless you and our church family and may God bless our church and those who brought shoes. May God bless all of those tender hearts.

I think that says it better than anyone could. Praise God for our church family. Thank you for giving to the Lord!

Joyfully,
Bro. Charlie

Dr. Charles L. Wilson has been the senior pastor of Sunnyvale First Baptist Church in Sunnyvale, Texas,  since 1990.

COPPELL, Texas—One teacher at the Coppell Dance Centre doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to protecting kids’ feet.

Keith Green, director of hip-hop at the studio, found a way to put his passion and talents to a creative use to collect shoes and money for Shoes for Orphan Souls and Buckner ministries last month. He organized a hip-hop workshop fundraiser called “Good 4 the Sole,” and challenged dancers to give new shoes to attend the event at a discounted rate.

A choreographer and dancer with 14 years of experience, Green got into the industry after a torn hamstring ended his semi-pro football career. He was working as a personal trainer when one of his clients invited him to a hip-hop class. Not seeing himself as the dancing type, he sat and watched the class for two weeks. His third week there, he got up and did the routine perfectly, never having tried it before.

“It was weird to me,” Green said. “And very weird to the teacher. Dance moved me in a different way, and I felt it was where I needed to be. I sold my half of the personal training business and started working at the dance studio.”

Despite his successful career in choreography, Green felt unfulfilled. He had dreamed of doing big tours and movies, but things hadn’t panned out that way.

“As a sat and reflected on my life and career and why I didn’t make it as far as others have, I started thinking it wasn’t God’s plan for me,” he said. “I realized he was calling me to use my resources and contacts to give back and help other people.”

Choosing Buckner as the charity for his fundraiser was a “no-brainer,” Green said. He used to volunteer at the Buckner Children’s Home in Dallas in the late 90s with friends, giving free haircuts to the boys that lived there.

“It was such a great experience,” he said. “For my journey and my heart, it just stuck with me. Ever since we stopped, I’ve wanted to do something like it again.”

He asked local choreographers to donate their time to help put on the workshop. Green taught at the event, along with Robert Anthony, Jenny Durbin-Smith, Sean Jackson and Roger Lee. Peter Vattakavanich, a Glacèau employee and Dallas break-dancer, donated cases of VitaminWater and SmartWater to help dancers stay hydrated during the intense five-hour workshop.

Green gave the 48 pairs of shoes and all monetary proceeds from the event to Buckner. He said he plans to continue to hold dance workshops benefiting Buckner.

“Shoes for Orphan Souls ties in perfectly with what we do as hip-hop dancers, because our shoes are so important to what we do,” he said.

To find out more about the next workshop fundraiser, visit the Coppell Dance Centre website. Or, sign up to host your own shoe drive here.