Chris Cregger

On June 2, 2012 Samaritan’s Feet teamed up with longtime partner Convoy of Hope and local churches in Frederick, MD to host a shoe distribution for 2,000 people as part of a larger event for the community. Chris Cregger and his team of high school students were some of our incredible volunteers at this event.

Chris Cregger had never volunteered with Samaritan’s Feet before taking a group of 15 high school students from First Assembly of God Church in Alexandria, VA to a Convoy of Hope event in Frederick, MD. However, the Student & Family Life pastor was intrigued.

When Cregger gave his students the opportunity to choose which of the Convoy of Hope tents to work at, nearly all of them decided to be foot-washers at the Samaritan’s Feet tent. Cregger stepped back and watched God move.
“I was blessed to see the students serving others.” Cregger said, “It was kind of humbling to me that they volunteered and asked to go there.”

One of the women who came to the tent showed up wearing a battered pair of shoes. It came up in conversation that the shoes she was wearing were the pair she received from the event last year and they had been her only pair of shoes since that time. She told one of the students that during the year she had been praying that Samaritan’s Feet would be back again. “She was just tickled to death that she was able to get another pair of shoes,” Cregger said.

Cregger believes that his student volunteers took just as much away from the distribution as the woman. “People that volunteered in that tent walked away different than they were before,” Cregger said.

Another man who came by the tent had diabetes and was wearing only a thin pair of slippers. His feet were badly swollen and beaten, but the teenagers from First Assembly of God were able to get his feet into a pair of size 13 shoes. The new pair of shoes alleviated some of the pain he has when walking.

Before the man left, one of the girls from the group, a senior in high school, asked the man if she could pray for him and if he had any prayer requests. He asked her to pray for hope. When she asked the man if there was any reason in particular that that was his prayer request, he told her to look around; there is no hope. She began to minister to him and convince him of the hope all around them at the Convoy of Hope event. Then he let her pray for him.

“There is just another level of awesome to [these stories],” Cregger said. “God is using teenagers to make a difference.”

Cregger left the event convinced of the strength of Samaritan’s Feet’s mission and in a follow up email message shared, “I love what Samaritans Feet is doing! Thank you!!! Keep up the amazing work.”