Our Recent Battle With Jiggers
I know that we post lots of needs, but we are in a very different place now, a place we believe that God has put us in. The needs are GREAT here and often heartbreaking. We post about all the different needs not to overwhelm, but because we know that God calls different people to serve and give in different ways. But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 1 Corinthians 12:18-20
Several days ago I found out I had a jigger (click here to learn more about jiggers) in my foot. The pain of that was unreal and I'm no whimp to pain (I've had two non-medicated births). I woke up in the middle of the night with pain radiating out of the toe that had the nasty little creature living in it. The next morning the pain was worse and my friends decided to take a "look". I'm assuming that because they live here they knew immediately what was happening with my toe. Before I knew it they had opened up my toe and were squeezing it SO hard. The next day they repeated the same process, both days the pain was terrible. Since then we found that Aspen had one in her finger from digging in the dirt, thankfully is was a female and not painful, but it had laid eggs inside her finger. YUCK! I had another one manage to get in my big toe (caught it early so no pain) and 2 of the pastor's daughters have had them in their foot. So as you can imagine, now more than ever, I know the importance of all of these kids having shoes and me wearing mine all the time when outside ;)
What kind of shoes do we need? We need shoes that are in good condition. They don't have to be new, they don't have to be a certain style, they don't have to be a brand name, they don't have to be a certain size, even adult shoes are great! The older kids here have bigger feet, so adult shoes will be put to good use. We are asking for no flip flops because they just don't hold up. I can't tell you how many single flip flops I've seen on the side of the road because they have broken and no longer work. Most Goodwill stores have kids shoes for $2.99 a pair no matter the style and usually all the kids shoes are together making it a quick shopping trip. Adult shoes there usually run $7.99 each, but adult sandals are usually $2 or $3, so affordable for most people.
There are many different ways to meet the shoe needs here.
1. Collect them! Get your people involved and gather many pairs of shoes for these children. Maybe you have a small group at church, coworkers, workout buddies, a homeschool group or neighborhood friends help you collect them.
2. Drop off shoes for these shoeless feet at one of our drop off locations. One is in Rowlett, TX and one is in Fort Worth, TX. We can add more drop-off locations if needed. Email me at mrsbys03@gmail.com or message me on Facebook to arrange drop-off.
3. Donate money and we will purchase them here. We have no problem purchasing shoes here. We can get new and used shoes here for around $3-$6 a pair. About-Face Missions is set up for auto drafts so maybe you want to sign up for $10 a month and provide 24 pairs of shoes over the course of a year. ;) We are a 501c3 so donations are tax deductible. Click here to go to AFM's donation page
4. Share this blog and our Facebook posts with your friends and family. God can use anyone to help meet this need.
There are at least 3 trips coming to Bungoma, Kenya in 2017 starting in February. The people coming are willing to bring shoes to these shoeless feet. Also, this will be a never ending need here. Please don't think that we can collect too many shoes! I hope one day to have an organization like Sole Hope involved in this area, but that isn't the case right now so we are relying on y'all. Help us spread the word and shoe MANY shoeless feet.