I Heart Faces--Creek Shoes

This week, I Heart Faces is having a non-competitive week (Amy and Angie need a week off here and there!). The theme is "Barefoot Week", and it's for a good cause. I'm cutting and pasting this one, cause I can't possibly remember everything:

This past February we both attended the Blissdom blogging conference in Nashville at which time we were introduced to a wonderful charity called Soles 4 Souls.

About Soles 4 Souls: Soles4Souls is a Nashville-based charity that collects shoes from the warehouses of footwear companies and the closets of people like you. The charity distributes these shoes free of charge to people in need, regardless of race, religion, class, or any other criteria. Since 2005, Soles4Souls has given away over 7 million pairs of new and gently worn shoes (currently donating one pair every 9 seconds.) The shoes have been distributed to people in over 125 countries, including Kenya, Thailand, Nepal and the United States. Soles4Souls has been featured in Runner's World, Ladies’ Home Journal, National Geographic’s Green Guide, and The New York Times. It has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, BBC, CNN and thousands of regional news outlets across North America. Soles4Souls is a 501(c)(3) recognized by the IRS and donating parties are eligible for tax advantages. Anyone can join our cause, and we need your help.





During this week Soles 4 Souls is celebrating Barefoot Week and we are sponsoring our very first Photo Walk Across America (hey - that came in pretty handy, didn't it?!) :)

This week is Angie & Amy's week off from going through entries and will be a non-competition week. So, in keeping with our the spirit of our IHF photo walk and Soles 4 Souls Barefoot Week, during this week we will be sponsoring a photo challenge theme designed around shoes and feet.

Will you help us spread the word about Soles 4 Souls? To do so, anyone can link in a blog post or Flickr photo that has something to do with feet or shoes. Share a funny story about feet or shoes, a collage of your favorite feet photos or show off your own extensive shoe collection. This theme is completely open for your creativity and personality.

I love this theme! What a great charity; I've actually seen it in action through a woman at my church who runs a consignment shop called "Our Father's Hands". She was able to get a LOT of new shoes for the homeless folks that our church ministers to; it is a wonderful outreach. So... head over to the Soles4Souls page once you're done here, and of course skip on over to I Heart Faces for more great and "sole-full" entries! Now... here's mine:

We live by a creek. Y'all knew that, right? I mean, the name of the blog IS "Life by the Creek", and I didn't just pick that because it was catchy. And when you take a creek and add in a little boy, things tend to get messy. VERY messy. Because little boys LOVE creeks, and it's not a long-distance relationship. There are the crawfish:



And the catfish:



and the "fish" fish:



And then there's just walking in the creek:




There's also rock-hunting, and water-bug catching, and a host of other creek-related adventures. They all have one thing in common, though; feet get WET. Soaked. Shoes are filled with mud and stinky creek water. Which means that we always have a need. A need for shoes. And not just any ol' shoes, mind you... we need creek shoes. I buy, and I buy, and I buy; whenever I find shoes on sale that fit the boy, I buy them up. Because sooner or later (and usually, it's sooner), they will receive their first baptism, and once that happens, they are destined to become creek shoes. When a nice, new pair of school shoes accidentally ends up soaking wet because something in the creek couldn't wait, this is the look that I usually get:



That look is often followed by this one:



And it usually ends up like this, once he realizes that I am NOT smiling:



So, if you're thinking about buying land by a creek, just be forewarned; you WILL need to make room for a load of these:



But it will give you many, many opportunities to discover the beauty of God's creation while discussing just how blessed you are to have this many pairs of shoes in the "creek" pile. Knowing that so many have so little... makes us grateful for the soles that we have. And it makes me want to reach out ... to the souls who need us... just as we've been commanded.