Moved By Shoes

Jaynie, age 8, in the office of her
orphanage directoron the day
 we met her sucking a lollipop
and reveling in new shoes.

Mrs. Beaver:

Tonight I visited the blog of our friends (Room for More), Russ and Heather, and was moved to tears...by a photo of shoes.

Russ and Heather, who will go to court in Ethiopia in less than four weeks in the adoption of their four-year-old daughter, went Croc shopping at Target today. Happily they found just what they were looking for to take to the children at their daughter's orphanage. They photographed their find and posted the picture and I cried.

The picture brought back the memory of something our daughter, Jaynie, told us just a few months ago. When we first visited she and her siblings at their orphanage in Zhukovka, Russia in the summer of 2001, we took with us many shoes we had purchased as a donation.  Even though we took many, many shoes, we didn't manage to take any that were big enough for our three kiddos. It didn't matter. The shoes had a deep emotional impact anyway.

Jaynie told us that she and her siblings were delighted to get shoes. Even though the sandals were so small their heels hung off the back, the three of them wore these "prizes" until the shoes fell apart.

We just can't over estimate the needs of the world's 147 million fatherless children. A pair of shoes. Most of us have so many in our closet. Most of these children yearn for even one pair. When you help to supply people who are traveling to Africa or Russia or Haiti with shoes or medicine or school supplies, you are visiting orphans. God commands that we love in this way. God commands that we take our eyes off ourselves and look to the needs of most helpless.

The movement among Christians to adopt hopeless, helpless and often shoeless children is growing and gaining momentum. There is probably someone in your church who is in the midst of an adoption. Ask them what you can do for the children they will encounter. Perhaps you'll need run to Target tomorrow to buy some Crocs.