There are few things that make me happier in children’s ministry than a streamlined system. It was taking me forever to convert files to Mp4 for Media Shout until our good friend Handbrake came along.

If you do anything in children’s ministry with video you should download Handbrake. It works best in Mac OS and is easiest to use, but can used in PC. Elevate doesn’t offer Mp4 so we convert each lesson in Mp4 and load the files in Media Shout. The whole service runs extremely smooth. Instead of relying on a DVD player we can use the cues of Media Shout and can easily go back to a previous cue.

Thanks to Carolyn Mejia for making this process work. I had been working on it, but couldn’t get it quite down. It takes between 10-15 min to convert 1 lesson to Mp4.

When I look in my closet and see how many pairs of shoes I have, it seems unfathomable that someone would have none. What if my children’s shoes were worn out and their feet were cold in the winter or they had to walk barefoot every day? How would I feel? It makes my heart ache to know there are people around the world who walk in unsafe environments without shoes.

Soles4Souls is a charity in Nashville, Tennessee they have one mission: to get shoes to people who need them. Over 300 million people in the world walk in unsafe conditions and have no shoes.  What can we do to help?

Go here 50000shoes.com $5.00 buys not one, but two pairs of shoes. That’s a bargain!

The Goal is 50,000 shoes in 50 days! It would be great to share at Christmas how you donated a pair of shoes for a friend or family member. I would be honored to get a card that said “My present to you this year was to give people without shoes a pair”.

You can pass the word on to your friends through blog or email. Spread the word and let people know how to make a difference in someone’s life.

$5.00 + 3 clicks + 2 minutes= 2 pairs of shoes to someone who needs them.

You can win the opportunity to hand deliver your shoes on one of the trips to Mexico!