Shoeless, not Clueless

On a cold Spring noontime last Sunday, most of the people at my son’s church went home barefoot. No, they weren’t homeless or underprivileged, they were just moved by Mark’s sermon to place their shoes on the altar to be sent to Japan. He had forewarned them somewhat by asking everyone to wear a pair of shoes to church that day that wasn't necessarily their favorite pair. Some surmised what he had planned and brought boxes of shoes from their homes. No doubt they will be a blessing to many who lost everything in the earthquake and tsunami recently.

I can’t think of a gesture that would be more humbling and touching than to go to the altar, take off your shoes, and place them as an offering to God for the benefit of others. I don’t imagine that there was a dry eye in the place. Evidently, most of the shoes were sturdy, serviceable shoes in good condition, probably a lot of athletic shoes. I asked if anyone put in high heels, and he laughed that the ladies who wore them that day wouldn’t part with them. I remarked that it would be like when some people used to put neckties in missionary barrels to be sent to the jungles of Africa. (I remember seeing pictures of bare-chested natives wearing some of those neckties.)

“Mom, what are missionary barrels?” Mark asked. “I’ve always wondered what people meant by that.” Talk about a generation gap! As late as the 1950s, when I was a girl, churches routinely packed missionary barrels of clothing to be shipped, probably by sea, to foreign countries. Our church women’s group, then called Women’s Missionary Council, included rolls of bandages for the leper colonies. It would be an afternoon’s activity for the women, including my mother, to tear old clean, white, bed sheets into long strips of cloth, then roll them into bandages of the right size like a roll of gauze bandage. How my mother loved those hours of visiting, praying and fellowship with her WMC’s, hands busy in the work of the Lord.

From what I have read and seen in period movies and television presentations, frontier churches also received missionary barrels sent by rail to the West or to poor mountainous regions of the country. The minister’s family often depended on the contents for clothing and even toys and gifts at Christmas time, not only for themselves, but for their congregation as well.

Mark’s church also received an offering for Convoy of Hope, the disaster relief agency partnering with our church fellowship, who has been on the ground since day one of the Japanese tragedies. Thanks to modern transportation and travel, help is available almost immediately to stricken areas, followed soon after by shipments like the shoes and other humanitarian aid supplies. No need to wait months for boats as in the old days. Modes of transportation may have changed, but the motivation behind such shipments has not. Christian love and concern for their fellowman is as certain as the calamities that are sure to come.