Mission Moments – Sole Hope

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We are thrilled to be introducing you to our first featured organization here for Mission Moments in January.  Sole Hope is one of the first groups that I came in contact with at Allume in 2013. Dru and Asher, the founders of SH, were like so many of us… living life, chasing dreams, when God placed a burden on Asher’s heart to help cure the problem of jiggers in the children of Uganda.

The solution seemed simple, jiggers spread in uncovered feet…so shoes were the answer. But Asher took it one step further and came up with a design of a shoe that could be made by people in Uganda out of simple materials like old jeans, milk jugs and old tires! Isn’t that amazing?!

Sole Hope was born and the strides they are making in the fight against jiggers is unbelievable!

At Allume several of us participated in a group Shoe Cutting Party. This concept is so much fun. Gather your friends/family together, get a Shoe Cutting Packet from SH and set to work. They make it easy, providing the patterns needed to cut each of the shoe parts as well as a video that you can watch that explains the jigger problem in more detail.

Everyone has a spare pair of old jeans right?

It is amazing to me that a simple, used pair of jeans can make such a difference in the life of a young Ugandan child. But they do!

You can host a shoe cutting party in your home or your church, heck your entire community can be involved!

With the help of a shoe cutting packet, you start by tracing the shoe patterns on the jeans and cutting them out. Gather the pieces together and safety pin them as a set. Those sets are then mailed to North Carolina where they are packaged and sent over to Uganda where Sole Hope employs local men and women who sew those pieces into the actual shoes.

The cost to make the full set of shoes is $10 a pair. Sole Hope encourages everyone to donate that amount for each pair that you send to NC for processing! This money helps pay the salary of the shoe makers in Uganda.

This was one of the things I loved most about what Sole Hope is doing, they are providing opportunities for men and women in the local community to make money for their own families. This is what true mission work is about!

In Uganda the work is tough, the Sole Hope team works to host foot washing and jigger removal clinics. Each child and their family that comes through is educated on what jiggers are and how they can be prevented just by wearing shoes. And each child goes home with a new pair of handmade shoes. For the most severe of cases, they now also have an Outreach Compound, where children can be treated and cared for as they heal.

This is God’s work and it is such an honor to walk with them in this fight.

As a parent I can’t imagine not being able to provide such an essential, basic need. But it isn’t easy for these mamas, so we have the opportunity to walk beside them in the care of their babes.

Because Sole Hope is our organization for this month of January, we would love if you joined us in praying for them throughout this month. One of the biggest prayer requests for 2015 is that Sole Hope is working to purchase 8 acres of land that they can use as a permanent place to hold clinics and house the Outreach Center! Please pray for Dru and Asher and their family, for their health and safety and that God would guide their efforts there. Pray for the children that will attend a jigger removal clinic this month, pray for healing and hope. And pray for the parents, that they would be educated in the care of their children and would be blessed by the mission that Sole Hope is providing to their children.

For other ways you can help or participate with Sole Hope, please feel free to visit their site to find ways to get involved!

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As a reminder, if you are interested you can join our Pure Charity Giving Circle. Each member that wants to participate will donate a minimum of $10 to Pure Charity. Please take a moment to check out our link: God Sized Dreamers. All donations are tax deductible and would be deducted on the 15th of each new month. At the end of the month, we will request that Pure Charity donate any funds raised this month to Sole Hope! It is a simple way to give back and make a huge impact. We hope you will join us on this adventure. If you are interested in being a part of the giving circle please email us at prayermomentsGSD@gmail.com so we can send you an invitation to join us.

Photos Courtesy of Sole Hope