Jeff and I started teaching the 3rd grade Sunday school at our church. We only actually teach once every 6 weeks. The other 5 weeks the classes rotate to a different station and learn about different aspect of the 5 week lesson. This rotation focuses on the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5:1-16. Our class went to the games station and focused on Matthew 5:6-7. I like how the message translates it: "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat. You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full', you find yourselves cared for." The games the kids played had to do with shoes and at first I found myself wondering, 'what the heck do these games have to do with the beatitudes?' I soon found out.
First let me tell you about the games. The kids were divided into 3 teams of 3 people each. For the first game they had to take one of their shoes off, and hop to the other side of the room on one foot, leave their shoe on the line and hop back and tag the next person in line and so on until each team mate had a turn. The next game was retrieving the single shoe from the line by hopping on one foot. The next game was hopping on one foot to retrieve a random shoe from the pile, find the owner and put it on their foot. The kids never hopped on one foot and never put the shoe on the other persons foot had a lot of fun! It was crazy, funny and they worked as a team in a strange sort of way. So the games ended and we sat back down for a debriefing and talked about what all this meant. Do you have any idea? No? Well, you will soon.
Before we got to the meat of the lesson, we went around the tables and tallied up all our shoes that we own. There 12 of us in the room and the total number of shoes that we own collectively came to 95. Then came the lesson... There are over 300 million children without shoes in the world. Some kids don't wear shoes, some make shoes out whatever they can find. Our students practiced making makeshift shoes using cardboard and rubber bands. We discovered that it would be very hard to play and run and do fun kid stuff with shoes like that. They aren't comfortable and they always fall off. I was floored by the amount of shoes we all have and the amount of children without shoes. It's heartbreaking to me. How we don't think twice about buying that cute pair of sandals or that 2nd pair of tennis shoes and there are some kids that really need a pair of shoes and they have to use cardboard. And not just in other countries but here in our city too! This ties into the beatitude about mercy - "blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy" or like the message says "You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full', you find yourselves cared for." We are going to show we care by collecting shoes that we don't wear anymore and donate them to our clothing store ministry at our church. I was touched by how excited the kids were for this and I think it will be so cool for the kids to see collectively how many shoes they have brought in to help those in need!
I think this ties into the other beatitude about hungering and thirsting for righteousness for they will be filled. The message puts it "You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat." If my life is so full of other stuff, like shoes or whatever I won't have room for the main course, God. The other stuff just satisfies temporarily. Sometimes we need to give up something and give it away and God will fill us up where we need it and we will be fully satisfied. There are so many areas in my life where I need to let God fill me up, but I'm not hungering for him because it's too hard, scary, or not how I want it to be. If this lesson touched me, how much more will the shoes I donate touch the hearts of those who need them!
Our family counted up all the pairs of shoes, boots, and slippers that we own and we came to the grand total for 46 pairs of shoes for a family of 6. That averages about 8 pairs per person! We surely have some that are outgrown, or that we just don't wear enough that we can donate! I will update you with the total amount of shoes donating sometime next month. The shoe drive continues until October 25th.
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