Compared to some of my peers I don’t have that many pairs of shoes. But, I have three pair of dress shoes, a pair of boots, work boots, golf shoes, basketball shoes, three pairs of sandals, running shoes, water shoes, shoes to wear when I cut the grass…And, I spend a lot of money on most of my shoes. I want to “take care of my feet”.
I don’t put much thought into the fact that I have several pairs of shoes. I know some of my friends, guy friends, have a lot more shoes than I do. It’s common for them to have 2-3 different colors of the same shoe to go with different outfits. Sigh.
I can easily mock them for having so many shoes, and how they can be a little snobbish about the fact that I tend to wear the same shoe or boot over and over with all my different “outfits”. But compared to much of the world who have no shoes at all, I am much more like my friends who have a closet full of shoes.
I have hiked through villages in China, served meals to families living in slums in Thailand, played with children along our Texas/Mexico border, dug a well in a Honduran village, and helped build a school in a Guatemalan Indian mountain village. One common denominator in each place was children running around with no shoes.
The sad thing is many times I accepted it as normal. Normal that they didn’t have shoes as if it is was a cultural thing. Or maybe I blocked it from my conscious mind because the solution overwhelmed me.
15 years ago Buckner International began collecting new pairs of shoes to take to areas around the world where they serve. Since 1999 Buckner has provided nearly 3 million shoes in 76 different countries. Now that is making a difference.
Barefoot Run
I think I might be crazy, but I agreed to run a barefoot 5K on October 4, 2014. Shoes for Orphans, a ministry of Buckner, is hosting this 5K to raise awareness and funds to buy more new shoes for children around the world, many of them orphans. Check out the website for the Barefoot Run.
Over the next five weeks I will give updates on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and here on my blog. You need to know that I am not a runner, but I play a lot of basketball. Maybe I need to have someone run in front of me with a basketball goal to take my mind off my bare feet. Hmm.
Consider making a donation, joining me in Dallas on October 4 or register to run where you live sometime between October 4-11.
This video highlights Shoes for Orphan Souls 15th anniversary. Check it out!
How many pairs of shoes do you have?
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