Shoes for Rwanda

And here are the long awaited details of the TOMS Shoes distribution with Kris Allen....one of the most amazing but exhausting weeks of my life! We had a total of 23 people working on the shoe distribution and traveling around Rwanda all week. Here is the breakdown of our team: two people from TOMS shoes, who actually turned out to be the President of the company (right under Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS) and soon to be Vice-President; Kris Allen and his precious wife Katy, along with his manager Lizzie; five great guys from New Life Church in Conway, AR; an incredible film crew from Stoneward in Little Rock; and of course, our wonderful Bridge2Rwanda team. We spent just about every waking moment together, and by the end of the week were long lost best friends.

Part of the group....

I will do this in a couple of posts, so as to avoid one incredibly long and drawn out post. The week started off great, as we hosted several dinners for visitors at our house in Musanze. We did our first shoe drop on Monday on top of an incredibly remote mountain in Northern Rwanda. When I say remote...I mean remote! This is an area that is part of the Shyira Diocese under Bishop John's leadership, and he recruited a couple from the US to take over the local run-down hospital after the genocide. The Kings, both Harvard trained medical doctors, now live on top of this remote mountain with their four children and have turned around the health services in this entire area. The drive up the mountain was scary to say the least, as it had been raining for several days and the usual rough and rocky dirt roads had turned into a muddy mess, with the steep cliff haunting us with every spin of the tires. All cars made it up the mountain in one piece (although we did look back and literally see one of our cars spinning in the mud on two wheels for several seconds). Once we arrived on top of the lush green mountaintop, the distribution began for children at the hospital, a local orphanage, and the area Primary school. It is part of TOMS policy that we literally place the shoe on the child's foot, to make sure the shoes fit and to have a chance to connect with each individual child. Many of the children came in barefoot or with shoes that were tattered and falling apart. What a humbling experience! To take the dirty, torn feet of a precious child who has never known the luxury of a new pair of shoes and place a bright and shiny new pair of shoes on their feet...and then to watch them walk away with a huge smile on their face, beaming with pride and excitement...there is definitely something humbling about the whole process. I think the most humbling part is to know how much I take my own shoes (or hundred pair of shoes) for granted. To think that I have shoes for every season, for every occasion, in every color...and some of these children literally received their first pair of shoes. This completed the first shoe drop...will post more updates later.

Holding on for dear life going up the mountain!

Kris and one of the children at the hospital.

Sizing and fitting area at the shoe distribution.

Celebrating with a little girl about her new shoes!

The view from the top of the mountain. Beautiful Rwanda!

New shoes:)

My lovely new pair of shoes that the TOMS people brought me.

To be continued....