World Compassion Ministry Sending Shoes To Iraq

By Craig Day, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- A drive is underway to send shoes to kids in Iraq.  A Tulsa-based organization hopes when you're shopping for back-to-school, you'll pick up something extra to send to children half a world away.

In a dozen trips to war-torn Iraq, with all the experiences and memories, one thing stuck with Terry Law:  the children.

"We were going through Iraq constantly and I noticed children never had shoes in the major cities.  They would have maybe flip flops on their feet or maybe bare feet," said Terry Law with World Compassion Ministries.

So, for the past three years, Law's Tulsa-based World Compassion Ministry has been sending children's shoes to Iraq.  The latest shipment will be delivered to the country's northern Kurdish region.

"We've got 10,000 shoes right now in Iraq, and 10,000 Bibles," said Terry Law with World Compassion Ministries.

At the end of the month, the group will distribute the shoes along with copies of the Bible printed in Arabic and Kurdish.

"We've spent a lot of money on bombs and guns and everything else we've sent to Iraq.  And, I kind of have a feeling that a pair of shoes for a child that's been traumatized could be a whole lot better gift to give Iraq," said Terry Law with World Compassion Ministries.

In three years since the program began, the group has sent 34,000 pairs of shoes to Iraqi children.

A drive is underway at area Payless Shoe Stores to get even more shoes.

"We'll go to villages that have never seen Americans or know anything about us, and there is a certain amount of danger involved, but it's a tremendous thing to see the faces of those kids when they put on the shoes," said Terry Law with World Compassion Ministries.

Law says the program is a unique way to open doors, spread goodwill and the gospel.

World Compassion will have shoe drop-off centers set up Thursday night at River Walk Crossing in Jenks.