We are approaching the finish line! Join us today and Saturday!!

September is turning out to be a big month with many worthwhile activities going on! Thanks for including our humanitarian service activities in your busy schedule. We invite you to our regular workday today, September 11th, and especially remind you of Saturday, September 13th when we'll have literally wall-to-wall projects going on. (See the post of August 7th for details of what we'll be doing on Saturday.) Note that today's time will be the regular 11am to 8pm and Saturday's time will be 9am to 4pm. This will be a day to remember!

If you have one, please bring along a good pair of sewing scissors with you on Saturday! Be sure to put your name on it (sorry, pink yarn tied on won't due...)

Thanks in advance to all who will be serving as supervisors over the different stations. Your assistance is invaluable!


Still need a few more boxes of colored pencils (72) and notebooks (12 cases) and UPS tape. The sale is still on at Walmart (60 cents for pencils; $1.20/case for notebooks), though you have to go pretty early in the morning to get the notebooks when they're first put out. We'll go for you if you'd like.) We'll also need more UPS tape for taping our boxes. As always, thanks!

Some of our gifts are already there!
Do you remember that a suitcase full of our gifts made the trip to Afghanistan this past April with Julianna Ditty, Vice President of International Orphan Care? Now the gifting is for us! Following are a few pictures taken of the Afghans who received some of those gifts.

Incidentally, you can check out International Orphan Care's website at http://www.orphanproject.org/.

Julianna had a wonderful time with these children at the Mir Mohammad Youssof Vocational School in Jalalabad. With the help of these darling puppets, she taught the English names of the animals. She would make the sound of an animal (which of course is the same in any language) and then give the English name. The children responded enthusiastically!

Who remembers this 'ducky' fleece blanket? This kind man, who cares for his orphaned grandchildren, was humbly grateful to receive it.



This mother and her two daughters live in a village on the outskirts of Kabul. There's a story behind this one - for another time.



Bashor, a teacher at the Mir Mohammad Youssof Vocational School, holds a blanket that he received as a wedding gift for his bride's family. This gift helped to clinch the plans for marriage to the woman he had longed to marry for several years. The feelings were mutual!