God has been so gracious to me in my life and I don't ever want to take any thing lightly or for granted the opportunities he provides or brings my way. Like many of you must be knowing already,I started a children's ministry in uganda over seven years ago, to primarily instill godly values and discipline into children in my village and also as a way to spread the word and love of Jesus in action to children at a young age just like I was privileged to know him earlier in my childhood.
Along the way through many lows God has brought us to a place where we now run our own school offering free academic education and a good biblical foundation which we believe will impact their lives in a very special way and also change their surroundings. One thing however has touched my heart so deeply that I felt the need to share my testimony on the great 'asset' called shoes!! As far as I can remember in my life growing up in Uganda is that I never owned more than one pair of shoes, and the one pair I owned took me to school, church, played soccer with it and went with me everywhere I went.
Now that is for almost the first 15 years of my life , first of all boys shoes for some reason
were always more expensive than girls shoes and growing up with a single mother who had to play all roles including taking care of herself without any external support, I was even very lucky to have a pair of my own, by then actually we used to purchase second hand everything from a big open air market with products that came from Europe and the US and I mean everything to your imagination!! Before the mighty Chinese introduced brand new cheap products to our markets....
Now recently very good friends and partners in the ministry initiated a shoes drive for our children in the village of Kyoga, and the results have been so amazing, it's only a few days ago that I felt so inspired to write this blog to testify of my own story and what shoes mean to me and those poor little children.
One of the most captivating shoe memories I have is when I was a teenager at 15 years and I remember one of my cousins I was staying with had to give me one of her own pair of shoes for me to wear to school, and my cousins were girls for your information!!!
Just imagine having a 15 year old American boy teenager wear girls shoes to school, church, weddings and everyplace... It was so embarrassing but I didn't have any other choice and one thing I used to pray and declare was that if I got money 'one day' I would have a closet full of shoes.. Because I vividly remember that if my shoes weren't torn from the many miles to and from school, the abundance of rain in uganda or the beautiful game of soccer!! Something was eating away my one pair of shoes and oh yes one day they even stole the only pair I had at a school soccer game. I had removed them on that fateful day to use them as goal posts or parameters for the opposing side, by the time we came back from a counter attack on the opposite side my shoes and school shirt were taken and to this day you and I haven't heard of the whereabouts of my black shoes and school uniform, I do however still remember how mad my mom was and the whooping I received that day.
I am not just writing a fun and sad story but a story to thank everyone who has been a part of this successful shoes drive, and also to let you know the impact you are making in a child's life you may probably never meet and most importantly not taking for granted the conveniences we have in this country.
On behalf of the great team and leadership we have at Kuza Africa here in the US and in Uganda thank you so much for being the hands and feet of Jesus.
I now 'own' six decent pairs of shoes and I am content with that number!!!!
With gratitude,
Andrew Paul Kizito
Founder
Kuza Africa
www.kuzaafrica.org
