Samaritan's Feet South Africa

Share Our Work

samaritansfeetsa — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 08:46:46 +0000

Samaritan’s Feet South Africa has created a new promotional video to share about our work in southern Africa, and to ask others to get involved. Please have a look and share it with your friends!

2010 in Review

samaritansfeetsa — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:20:20 +0000

We’ve created a video to share with partners and friends of Samaritan’s Feet South Africa, with photos from some of our distributions in 2010. It’s posted below and on our home page — please check it out and feel free to pass it on!

The music you’ll enjoy in the background was recorded when Mirriam and her children sang for us at a distribution last month.

We hope you enjoy the video! We can’t thank you enough for partnering with us to make the dream of Samaritan’s Feet South Africa a reality in 2010. Thank you again and again!

–SFSA

A Small Distribution With Big Heart

samaritansfeetsa — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:02:23 +0000

In partnership with friends from the Grape Community and Paarl Family Church, Samaritan’s Feet South Africa had the privilege of hosting a small distribution for Mirriam’s Children last week. On a very small property in a township near Paarl, Mirriam and her sister, Gina, look after more than twenty children. Some are orphans, others abandoned, still others came to Mirriam to escape difficult circumstances.

These photos are a few humble attempts at capturing the special moment that took place.

Our little one decided to join in the fun…

The group sang for us at the end of the afternoon, and I wonder if we’ll ever hear more heavenly sounds this side of heaven!

Thank you, friends at Paarl Family Church and the Grape Community, for volunteering to make this event possible. You have such heart!

Thank you, Mirriam and Gina, for the James 1:27 inspiration that you are to all of us!

–SFSA

SFSA Featured At Africa Stories

samaritansfeetsa — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:04:17 +0000

We just caught wind that a story about SFSA’s partnership with Living Hope was featured on Africa Stories a wee while ago!

Click here if you’d like to read on!

Shoe Stories: Primary School near Paarl

samaritansfeetsa — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:05:56 +0000

Back in August SFSA had the privilege of partnering with Paarl Family Church to make a Shoes of Hope distribution happen near Paarl, right here in SA. (It’s not too far from Cape Town).

What a blessing to see these smiling faces, so many kids encouraged with a clean pair of feet, a message of hope, and a new pair of shoes!

Basketball Coach Ron Hunter from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUIPUI) with some excited kids!!

Samaritan’s Feet co-founder, Tracie Ohonme, sharing the love!

Such precious kids!!

One of our dear friends, Gabriel lending a hand and washing some feet…

Big style prayer moment…

There were so many precious kids — we wish we could photograph every one!

Is this not one of the most beautiful smiles you’ve ever seen?

What a happy, happy day!

What a privilege to be a part of sharing Jesus’ love in such a practical way! Thank you, dear friends visiting from the US, and the team from Paarl Family church, for making this Shoes of Hope distribution such a success! From the bottom of our hearts, and many feet, we’re thankful!

–SFSA

“Shoes for Healing” touch Zimbabwe

samaritansfeetsa — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 13:00:57 +0000

Samaritan’s Feet South Africa had the privilege of celebrating the International Day of Peace on 21st September, 2010 in a very special way. Our director, Mark Collie, joined colleagues Dr. Courtney Cash (Director of International Operations for Samaritan’s Feet International) and Dr. Noah Manyika (President of Nexus Global Serve and Zimbawean Expatriate) for a special week in Zimbabwe with a gift of 5,000 pairs of shoes.

The shoes are being called “Shoes of Healing” and have been donated by Samaritan’s Feet South Africa and Samaritan’s Feet International to the Organ for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration in Zimbabwe. The country’s Ministry of Education, Arts, Sports and Culture has selected thirty children per school at ten different schools in each of the ten provinces in Zimbabwe to be recipients of the shoes.

On Wednesday the 22nd, at a special ceremony at a primary school in Gwanda, Dr. Cash presented Zimbabwe’s Vice President John Nkomo with a pair of shoes. VP Nkomo is the chairperson for the Organ for National Healing, and was acting president since President Robert Mugabe was away at the United Nations Summit in New York.

The Organ for National Healing is very excited about the Shoes for Healing pilot program, and a co-minister of the Organ, Senator Sekai Holland spoke fondly about the poems that children wrote to share what it meant to them to receive a pair of shoes.

So far shoes have been distributed in five of the ten provinces in Zimbabwe, and it is expected that more distributions will take place with President Mugabe present in October.

As SFSA’s Director, Mark Collie commented, “It was an honour and a privilege to be able to stand, shake the hands of, and look into the eyes of the children receiving these shoes and encourage them to hope in a new and brighter future.”

We are excited about the privilege of being a part of healing and restoration in Zimbabwe! Thank you for your support and help in making this possible! We hope to have more photos and stories from Zimbabwe for you right here, soon!

–Caroline Collie

Stories that Need to Be Told

samaritansfeetsa — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 08:00:18 +0000

Last week we were sitting in a meeting with volunteers and staff from a ministry we’ve been partnering with here in the Western Cape called Living Hope. We were asking about their experiences of the Shoes of Hope distributions we’d hosted together. Where could we stand to improve? What success stories were there? Have any kids been put in danger because they received shoes? We want to take the time to reflect on our work to make sure unintended consequences are avoided whenever possible, and to look at ways we can potentially improve our work.

We began to discuss positives from our recent distributions and one particular story came up, which is a story that needs to be told.

At our Shoes of Hope distributions, there is a special one-on-one moment, when a volunteer washes a child (or adult’s) feet and fits them with a new pair of shoes. We see that moment as an opportunity to connect with the person personally, and we usually ask two simple questions:

1. What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you?
2. What is your greatest dream?

During our meeting, a volunteer shared that one little boy was impacted in that moment in a significant way. Usually the most disruptive of the kids in their after-school club, after he’d had his one-on-one moment with a volunteer who washed his feet, at least for a day, he was a completely different little boy.

Why?

When he was asked What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you? he decided to open up and share, with a complete stranger who’d only been volunteering at Living Hope for a week. He shared the worst thing that had ever happened to him: he’d been raped.

I can scarcely imagine the horrible, soul-destroying, terrifying experience of being raped as an adult, and it brings me to tears and breaks my heart to know that it is a common part of the story of children in poverty. It’s estimated that the average young girl growing up in a township in South Africa has a better chance of being raped than of learning to read. Substance abuse, child abuse, and poverty seem to walk hand in hand.

But for a brief and shining moment, this boy was heard. He shared his pain, and it impacted him. The volunteers at Living Hope will follow up with him, in hopes of helping him work through the pain of his experience. They now have a better understanding of why he has been the most disruptive of the club’s participants all along.

In a perfect world, this would never, ever, ever happen to a child. The unfortunate truth is that in our world, it is happening every day.

As we train volunteers in preparation for a Shoes of Hope distribution, we try to make it a point of saying It’s not about the shoes. The truth is, these Shoes of Hope are shoes of opportunity. They create a moment for someone who is in need, who may be hurting, who might be crying out just to be heard, to be prayed for, to be honoured as a fellow human being, worthy of love and dignity.

Every person has a story. We just need to take the time to ask, and to listen.

Thank you for supporting the work of Samaritan’s Feet South Africa. These moments are what our ministry is all about.

–SFSA

Thank You, We Are THAT Family!

samaritansfeetsa — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:01:10 +0000

Samaritan’s Feet South Africa is pleased to announce that we’ve been chosen by Kristen at We Are THAT Family as this month’s Back to School Do It For Others Project. Kristen will be hosting a shoe drive in sunny Texas, collecting shoes to benefit kids and adults in need here in sub-Saharan Africa!

We’re very excited to watch kindness and generosity unfold that will touch lots of hearts and lots of feet in the weeks ahead. Please visit We Are That Family to find out how to be a part of this special project. If you can’t send shoes, you can also find out how you can make a financial contribution which will help make this project a big success!

Thank you very much, Kristen, and all who give, for helping us bless people throughout sub-Saharan Africa with a message of hope and a new pair of shoes!

–SFSA

YWAM Rustenberg Shoes of Hope Distribution, Video #2

samaritansfeetsa — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:15:07 +0000

Our previous post will give you the backstory on the Shoes of Hope Distributions that took place in partnership with YWAM Rustenberg during the World Cup. Our friends there made two great videos to document the awesome events in Rustenberg and send a thank you our way.

Seeing these beautiful faces light up makes the hard work worth it!

To our friends at YWAM Rustenberg, we are glad the distributions were a big success! Thanks for the great videos! It is a pleasure and a privilege to work together to see people around South Africa touched with a message of hope, clean feet and a new pair of shoes!

–SFSA

Video from our Partners at YWAM Rustenberg

samaritansfeetsa — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:10:47 +0000

A few weeks ago, SFSA’s director, Mark Collie, was busy in a warehouse in the middle of the World Cup, individually counting out and sorting thousands of pairs of shoes for distributions around the country. Mark was there by himself, working through bronchitis to get the shoes sorted, and since it’s also a storage warehouse for sugar, he couldn’t put any shoes on the floor! Needless to say, it was some challenging work!

Among the places those shoes ended up, two distributions took place in Rustenberg during the World Cup, and the team there made two great videos to share with us, and all of you fans of Samaritan’s Feet South Africa.

Seeing these beautiful faces light up as they heard a message of hope and received a new pair of shoes made the hard work worth it! Around 110 kids and adults were touched at this Shoes of Hope distribution.

Thanks for the hard work you put in to make this possible, Mark!!

And thank you to our friends at YWAM Rustenberg for your hard work to make these Shoes of Hope distributions a great success!

This was the first of two great videos the team in Rustenberg made to document the special events.

Check out our next post and enjoy Video #2! It’s even better!