God showed up in so many amazing ways during our 3 days of shoe distributions. The first day we we serving the older students (what we would refer to as grades 4-8). Some of these students, mostly boys, were very tall which meant they had large feet. That was part of the problem. We only had a certain number of shoes sized 10-13 and, using our first grade math skills we quickly discovered that the boys outnumbered the shoes. We knew God would come through because we knew He wanted to love on these children. The ladies who were running the shoe store would here us request a size and if they notived that we no longer had that size they would grab the biggest pair left (which on the first day were size 9) and pray over them asking God to bless the child and alow the shoes to somehow fit. Everytime that first day the size 9's fit boys who measured feet as 11-12 1/2. God is so good!! The next day we had even more times for God to show us His amazing faithfulness and desire to bless these children and love on them in special ways. We had more growing boys, boys who while very young made almost all of us feel very short I might add, anywaywe had these growing boys and socks. These were special socks. They were size 4.5 Toddler. That's right we had toddler socks and teenage boys. Now, math is not a storng suit for many people so let me help you out with the math equation we had 2 toddler socks + 1 teenage boy = walmart run. Funny thing about where we were in Kenya......there was no WalMart. Instead of Wal Mart we got more of God's amazing faithfulness. Just like with the shoes before ladies in the group put socks on the older boys they said a quick silent prayer asking God to allow the sock to somehow fit. It may have taken some stretching and patience but those toddler socks worked and stayed on the feet of those teenage boys. For those of you who have had or currently have teenage sons it's ok to pause here and just take a moment to praise God because you know first hand how much of a miracle that would be.
Theis is a picture of one class waiting to get sized and measured for their new shoes. To all my teacher friends out there yes you read correctly these students are all in the same classroom!
In this picture the students are getting their feet washed, some lotion rubbed on their feet, new socks, and fitted for their new shoes. Most of the time they were so excited about the shoes that they were already half off before they sat down in the chair.
We brought 16 of these large duffle bags into the country filled with different sized shoes.
Before we did any distributing we pulled out all 16 bags and sorted the shoes by size on the sidewalk at the hotel. It was an amazing sight once all the shoes were out. After inventory we found there were over 500 pairs!
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