In the four years that First Baptist Church, Russellville, has participated in Operation Knit Together, Pastor Gene Balding has gone three times to take shoes to the orphans of Moldova and the region of Transnistria.
The last time was two years ago, he said — otherwise he wouldn’t be able to talk about it. “If you’ve just been and come back, all you do is cry,” Balding said.
Operation Knit Together, or — as Balding calls it — the “boot mission,” is a project for churches to collect money to purchase shoes and socks for the residents of the area’s 66 institutions.
In the former Soviet republic, “when temperatures begin warming in March, the hands and feet of many of the children who live in government institutions remain swollen because of frostbite,” according to Dearing Garner, a staff member of Children’s Emergency Relief International (CERI), the international arm of Baptist Child & Family Services (BCFS). Operation Knit Together is a ministry of CERI.
“As blood starts to flow once again, their skin turns from waxy white, to red and then to purple. The pain is intense,” he said.
Garner, retired pastor of First Baptist Church, Kingwood, Texas, is leading the effort to raise $250,000 and 90 volunteers to distribute shoes, socks, hats and gloves “throughout the tiny, Eastern European country.”
Teams of volunteers will personally distribute the clothing in three stages: Nov. 24–Dec. 3, Dec. 2–11 and Dec. 9–17.
“Orphanages are at the bottom of the feeding chain,” Balding said. “If there is not enough coal to go around, the orphanages don’t get any. If the power is turned off, they are the last ones to get theirs turned back on. They could go for a week with below-freezing temperatures in their rooms.”
That’s why First, Russellville, and its sister church in Franklin Baptist Association — Mount Hebron Baptist, Spruce Pine, where Jerome Sherrill is pastor — decided to take on the project.
“If we don’t do this, they won’t have shoes,” Balding said. “It’s been a very rewarding experience. It’s been good for [First, Russellville].”
Bob Rogers, a member of First, Russellville, said the project is hard work but very fulfilling.
“You drive to four to six orphanages a day, sometimes miles apart, and fit the children with shoes. Then, during the night, you coordinate with the other teams to see who is running out of different sizes and redistribute the shoes between the teams,” he said.
But it’s life changing to see the immediate outcome of a hands-on missions project, Rogers added.
“They are very appreciative and we’ll see some of the same children from year to year. We’ll also see the same shoes passed down from child to child.”
Balding said team members take the children’s old socks off, put new socks on, measure their feet for shoe size and then “lace them up and love on these kids.”
“[The children] appreciate the loving as much as the boots,” he added.
The census for the 66 orphanages is 12,630, which translates to 15,156 pairs of shoes “to be sure everyone gets a pair that fits.”
Most of the shoes will be purchased in Moldova, providing a boost to the local economy, but donated shoes also will be shipped over.
The socks are being donated by a North Carolina textile company, Kentucky Derby Hosiery.
“Our goal is to personally put the shoes, socks and other items directly into the hands of the children,” Garner explained. “They need this material help, but the greatest gift we can give them is the knowledge of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
“We will work alongside local Christians to show solidarity with the Moldovan Baptist churches, as well as distributing gospel tracts in English, Moldovan and Russian.”
A December 1999 missions trip to Moldova sparked Operation Knit Together.
“One night, a group of children surrounded us to greet us and we realized many of them were barefoot and didn’t have hats or gloves in that bitter, bitter cold,” Garner said. “People started pulling off their own hats and scarves and gloves — and when we got back home, we began praying about how to spare children from frostbite.
“We think Operation Knit Together is what God told us to do.”
While meeting with officials from Moldova’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in planning for the 2006 distribution, “God just impressed me that we could minister to all the orphanages — so we told the government not to even budget for shoes because CERI and Operation Knit Together would take care of it,” he explained.
On July 17, the Moldovan government and CERI formalized the agreement. Signees included Valeriu Ghelitchi, president of the Baptist Union of Moldova.
By mid-July, 21 churches (mostly Baptist but including Methodist, Presbyterian and nondenominational congregations) from Alabama, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana were deep into fund raising and recruiting volunteers while churches in West Virginia and Pennsylvania were gearing up to participate.
Additionally the North Carolina National Guard has taken on Operation Knit Together as one of its projects, along with two rotary clubs in the Tar Heel State.
Though the focus is on the children, Operation Knit Together also will provide shoes, socks, gloves and hats to all the adults institutionalized in government facilities.
For information about Operation Knit Together, call Garner at 210-787-0535 or e-mail him at dgarner@cerikids.org.
(TAB, BCFS)
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