Shoes for Orphan Souls: ShoeNews

By Russ Dilday
Buckner News Service

(HOUSTON, Texas) – About 125 members of South Main Baptist Church gathered after morning worship services Sunday, along with the almost 13,500 pairs of shoes they collected for distribution to orphans and at-risk children. The collection, a church record during the congregation’s seven years of gathering shoes, was done in support of Buckner International’s Shoes for Orphan Souls drive.

And while many churches would have stopped to celebrate the event, South Main was too focused on their afternoon objective to pause: They needed to get their collection loaded and on its way to Buckner’s Dallas humanitarian aid center and on its way to children.

Shoes filled the atrium of the South Main Fellowship Hall in mounds so high that children scaled them as they moved shoes to tables where adults bound and boxed them. The scene was hectic, with volunteers crowded around.

“It’s an amazing missions project,” said member Amy Herndon, looking up from zip-tying shoes. “I’ve been here twice this week unpacking shoes, taking stuffing paper out, tearing boxes down and taking tags off, but it needed to be done because the kids need them so desperately.”

Shoes for Orphan Souls staff member Julia Stark walked among the tables, helping members prepare the shoes for travel. “This church has a giving heart. It’s overwhelming to be here and see how open and willing they are to make sure kids get the nice, well-treated new pair of shoes they deserve.”

Everyone in the crowd points to Henry Hill and his wife Maggie as the leaders of the church’s shoe drive efforts. Hill, a trustee emeritus for Buckner, has led the church’s drive for the past seven years and participated in several Buckner-hosted mission trips to place shoes on orphan children’s feet.

“This year’s numbers bring our church total to 43,000 over seven years,” Hill said. “Every year the effort has grown in excitement and contributions from adults and kids.”

While Hill spoke, his grandson Noah Vincent was pulling shoes from a bin for processing.

“It’s fun,” said the 9-year-old. “You get to throw shoes.”

More seriously, though, he added that he thinks about the “kids who are getting the shoes sitting outside with nothing to do because they don’t have a mom or dad. Giving them new shoes is good because new ones feel better, cleaner. I think they feel surprised.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Mary Corban, a mother of two, who has served as a volunteer for the drive since it started.

“Our church goes on the trips, and knowing that they’re getting placed on kids’ feet – that’s emotional,” she said. “It has been an eye-opener for our youth who’ve gone. The level of poverty here doesn’t compare to what our kids saw on the Peru trip with Buckner.”

Joy Henry and other members of University Baptist Church in neighboring Clear Lake participated in the drive by bringing sewn cold-weather scarves and hats “because the Lord impressed on me to do this,” she said.

Pastor Steve Wells said he’s seen the drives bring a “multiplying effect” to the church’s ministry. “After we collect the shoes, we have people going on the trips, and when they come back, they are transformed. It’s so tangible.”

Member Beth Watson counts herself among the transformed. After traveling to Guatemala with Buckner, she said she now envisions the recipients of the shoes.

“Every pair I pack, I have a visual in my mind,” she explained. “I see all of those girls in Manchen (Girls’ Home in Antigua). I think about the people who care for those children. I think about the young ones who squeeze the stuffing out of you and the older, street-smart ones. This meets their need.”