April, 2008 Shoe Team from The Heights Baptist Church 

Shoe teams are the most physically demanding teams we have.  We sleep in a different hotel almost every night and travel many, many miles over bumpy, curvy roads. We unload and load the shoes and clothes from the truck as many as four times in a day. Not an easy task.

But, shoe teams are some of the most needed teams. Orphanage directors call every spring and fall to see if BCI will be bringing them shoes! Their budgets simply cannot stretch far enough to purchase new shoes for the kids. Even with the shoes in our storage space, we simply could not get them distributed without volunteers from the States. We are very grateful to The Heights Baptist Church for sending us at least two shoe teams each year! 
 

In April, Jim Abernathy led a great shoe team of hard-working volunteers. The Heights Baptist Church team members included Jim, Roger Kittrell, Jennifer Purvis, Brandy Baker, and Tom Schleef. The team also included two former Heights members and shoe team veterans: Robert Butts (Nashville) and Ken Penney (Tyler). Two ladies, Cynthia Jacobus and Trisha Dolezal, from Williams Trace Baptist Church (Houston) also joined the team. We had a great week and visited 16 orphanages. We saw our northern border with Romania, the Danube River and our southern mountain border with Greece. and saw more than 1000 children. 

 We put new tennis shoes and socks on 857 children. Many of these kids (271)received sandals and/or dress shoes, also. Hundreds more children who do not walk because of disability or their age, were given socks. Everybody got some clothing, too. We still had hundreds of summer items from Kelly's Kids, plus some tee shirts from FBC Cabot, ARK. and jeans and other clothing from Williams Trace Baptist Church. The total number of clothing items given out was 2,491. In addition to that, 1,854 pairs of underwear was distributed. It had been collected by The Heights and was greatly appreciated.

Though weary from the travel, all the team members gave a lot of hugs and received even more from the children!

This team had a great spirit which made the whole week a great experience for all. The kids in the homes always love to see our blue truck come, because they know they will receive something. But they can't wait for the people to come and show them some love and attention. It means a lot.