Last Friday we received a couple of large boxes in the mail. They were filled with brand new sneakers in various children's and youth sizes. They were a gift from the youth group of Ocean State Baptist Church in Smithfield, RI for the children of a home for street kids run by a local charitable foundation in Manta. The Rhode Island youth had ministered in the home one afternoon last summer during their mission trip to Ecuador. In a letter accompanying the shoes they wrote:"While in Ecuador, we went to an orphanage to perform our skits for the children there, hoping and praying that God would touch their hearts in a life-changing way. But in the end, God unexpectedly touched ours. While some of the guys played soccer with the kids, we noticed they had no shoes and it broke our hearts. Seeing this really opened our eyes to how spoiled we were; we knew most of us owned way more than five pairs of shoes. And as a youth group, we decided to save up money and buy shoes for the Ecuadorians who couldn't. We hope these shoes are a blessing."
