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Shoes for Miguel
By Jenny Pope Miguel was a loner.
“Childhood polio,” orphanage staff told me. “He’s too ashamed to go outside.” While the rest of our Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls mission team played games and placed shoes on children’s feet outside, my friend Jouleen Castillo, Buckner missions coordinator, and I searched for the perfect pair to bring Miguel. We entered the Santa Rosa cottage with a pair of new white shoes, but Miguel never looked up. After struggling to lace the shoes over his swollen feet, we stepped back to ask, “Te gustan?” His eyes slowly cut up from his homework with an annoyed look. “Apretado,” he said. Too tight. We left the cottage even more determined than before and returned with two alternative pairs. This time, Miguel put down his pencil and looked up. We tried again to fit him for both pairs, but neither would do. With a laugh, we promised him that we were going to find a pair he liked and turned to leave. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. I thought I saw the beginnings of a smile. By round three, we entered with about six new pairs overflowing in our arms. Now, he smiled. Even laughed. We had finally won him over.
Jouleen diligently placed each pair of shoes on his feet, asking along the way, “Te gustan?” or “Muy apretado?” With each new pair, she smoothed out his socks and lovingly laced them for that perfect fit. About ten pairs of shoes later, Miguel blessed us with a nod of approval. “Estan bien,” he said. As I looked down to see which pair had elicited that handsome grin, I noticed that it was the very first pair we brought in earlier that day. New and white. As some of you read this story, you might ask, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a pair of shoes.” But for Miguel the studious introvert who spent most of his days watching the world pass him by from his wheelchair it was much, much more. For 15 minutes, Miguel, the loner, mattered. We each gave Miguel a hug and said our goodbyes before heading back into the laughter outdoors. I turned before leaving to see those new, white tennis shoes glow from beneath his formerly dark exterior. White. Somehow, I knew that was his color. Jenny Pope is the publications editor for Buckner International. She traveled to Peru in March on a Buckner Shoes for Orphan Souls mission trip.
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 Shoes for Orphan Souls, a ministry of Buckner, is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. |
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As laughter echoed from outside his empty room at the Aldea San Ricardo orphanage in Chosica, Peru, the 16-year-old boy sat in silence, surrounded by books and homework, a hooded sweatshirt shadowing his head. His crooked, swollen legs curled beneath him in his wheelchair.
Miguel realized that day that unlike his parents who left him at the orphanage nine years earlier due to overwhelming medical bills or the school administration who prevented him from passing due to long hospital stays we believed in him. We cared. And we were not going to give up.