I Have Three Gabillion Stories to Tell You

Apr 15, 2010 | South Africa, Stories

Guys and gals! I mean it! I have three gabillion stories to tell you. We had our first shoe distribution today in a township not too far from the Muizenberg section of Cape Town called Overcome Heights. It’s a very poor area where some 6,000 people just showed up and built a settlement in three days because just before elections the government made some sort of promises that would have affected people living in that area. I don’t think they made good on those promises, but anyway, that’s not the story, I’m just wiped from a long day, so I’m rambling.

But one real story is, a bunch of kids were blessed today, with a message of hope, with people who care about them praying for them and washing their feet, and with a new pair of Crocs.

Crocs?

Yes, Crocs. Not the fake imitation ones either. Sorry, was that redundant? Crocs committed 1 million pairs of shoes to Samaritan’s Feet over a four year period, and 1,000 of those Crocs are here in Gordon’s Bay for us to bless people with. Ahem, with which we can bless people. I didn’t want to end that sentence with a preposition, but y’all I’m tired. My southern is coming ow-wt! Dern!

You have probably guessed that because I’m so tired, I’m not going to try to tell you all three gabillion stories right now.

But here’s one.

I saw this little boy today waiting in line just outside the area where the kids enter and hear a message of hope.

I was really sad at first because I saw that he had bare feet, and I didn’t think he had gotten in line in time. There were so so many little feet. Little little bare feet! There are always more feet than there are shoes. But I wanted this little one to get a pair of shoes!

Much to my delight, I realized he had a little strand of bright blue raffia around his wrist. The blue raffia was the magic solution when we’d forgotten yarn and we needed a way to count how many kids would be getting shoes. We’d tie a bit on their wrists and then remove it after they’d received their shoes so they couldn’t come back through.

So I rejoiced when I saw that he was going to get a pair of shoes today. Yay!

And then, I happened to catch him again later…Here he comes to have his tootsies tickled and receive a new pair of shoes!

In the end, we were running low on small sizes, and he got a pair that was a little big for him. See below? We passed them along to his mother and he’ll probably be sporting them tomorrow anyway.

It is tough to know what a drop in the bucket those shoes were. It’s estimated that 300 million people around the world go shoeless every day.

If you have time, please take a second to give that number a second thought.

You back? Okay good.

Mother Theresa once said, “If you can’t feed a hundred, feed one.” Today, among the many, there was this one.

And this one.

And this one.

And on behalf of “these ones,” I want to say thank you, Crocs South Africa, and thank you to those of you who have supported our ministry or Samaritan’s Feet. From the bottom of my heart, and from the bottom of many feet, many, many thanks.

xCC