New Shoes - by Lisa

Well, today, I started my spring cleaning. I know, spring is almost over, so I should call it summer cleaning. Anyway, I started in my hall closet, with the SHOES. In the past, I have sorted closet shoes using the 3-G system: Good for another season, Goodwill Bound, or Garbage. Now, I use the 2-G System: Garbage, or Guatemala. There is no "in-between." It isn't until you have experienced mission work that I think you really understand the value of a pair of shoes. When we first met those beautiful children, we learned how important one pair of shoes can be for their health and well-being. So many children had no shoes. Those who did, sometimes had the ends of the shoes cut off so that toes could grow through. Shoes are important because they help reduce the chances of parasitic infections from the damp ground into their feet.

I began collecting shoes for this year's mission about a week after we returned home last summer. I waited for the seasonal shoes to come on clearance, then I'd buy up all they had on the rack. You get really strange looks when you are checking out with 25 pairs of children's shoes at a time! To one raised eyebrow, I commented, "Yep, I have lots of kids!" All year, I have been cruising the clearance aisles, just waiting for the markdowns. One of our sponsoring churches, St. Peter's UCC in Punxsy, knew how important shoes are. They collected over 75 pairs of flip flops for us to take along. Tonight, we decided to dump all of them out, just to see what these shoes would look like in one big pile. Check it out! 200 new pairs of shoes, just waiting to arrive in Guatemala. Just waiting for a child.