Birthing Kit Pictorial is ready to go! Christmas Stockings for parolees and their families!

Take a look at the copy of the pictorial instruction sheet that will be included in each of the birthing kits we are shipping to Afghanistan. This will enable women who, though trained as midwives, may or may not be literate. Untold hours have been spent to complete it. The translation you see here is in Farsi. The project has been done such that others who wish to use it in other areas of the world can receive it digitally and insert their own translation. Thanks to the obstetrician, photographer, graphic artist, translators, printer, and others who made this a reality!

Click on either page to see it close-up...

Workdays this week in Redlands and Colton

Thursday, January 8, 11am - 8pm at the Stake Center

We’ll be making sensory blankets, assembling hygiene kits for local parolees and more. Priority hygiene items are disposable razors, pocket-size notebooks, and men’s deodorant. We also need press-on interfacing for the blankets.

Location: The LDS Stake Center at the corner of 5th & Wabash in Redlands (next to the temple).

Saturday, January 10, @ noon at the Bishop's Central Storehouse

Location: 791 North Pepper Avenue, Colton 92324.

We’ll be inserting the pictorial instruction sheets into our birthing kits and labeling, stacking, measuring, and weighing pallets to go to Afghanistan. We could use help from a few men on this day too!

"I am only one…but still I can do something; and…I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

Helen Keller

Here's the latest on...

Parolee Support Update

• Christmas Stockings for families of parolees…

  On December 12, a group of women representing Step by Step met to assemble Christmas stockings with the generous donations made by several faith groups and organizations in Redlands, including Women of Faith. Then two days before Christmas, several of us accompanied parole officers as deliveries were made to 10 families of parolees who had been selected by their parole agents. It was a moving experience and confirmed to us that our efforts to support and encourage these individuals is important and valuable.

  Here are some shots of the assembly in progress at Redlands United Church of Christ:

• Current priority hygiene items are: men's deodorant, shaving cream, men's disposable razors, and pocket -size notepads. Hotel samples of anything are welcome and everything on the list is needed. (See side panel.)

• If you are new to this site -

  please take time to read up in the side column about our efforts to work with the parolees in our community. (See "Our Support of Redlands' Community Parolees by Providing Hygiene Kits") This has been a very worthwhile and valuable effort. More information will follow in future blogs. If you have a special place in your heart for these individuals and would like to get involved in helping them move forward in their lives, we could use your help. There are a variety of opportunities which take varied time commitments - from just a little to a lot. Please contact jeanarnott@gmail.com if you would like more information.

• Step by Step - a Re-entry Coalition meets for it's monthly board meeting on the first Tuesday of each month at 4:30pm at the Redlands United Church of Christ. It is located at 168 Bellevue Avenue in Redlands (corner of Olive and Bellevue). If you wish to find out more, please come.

"We are never really happy until we try to brighten the lives of others."

Helen Keller

Afghanistan II project news

An email from our friend in Kabul:

On January 1st, I received a cc of an email from Fauzia Assifi, an Afghan-American who is living in Kabul, Afghanistan. Fauzia participated in our very first meeting in October 2003 when our first project was born. She traveled to Afghanistan to help with the receipt and distribution of our goods in June 2005. Fauzia has chosen to remain in Afghanistan to help her war torn homeland. Her email on New Year's Day was a report of her most recent distribution of goods donated from Lutheran World Relief (LWR). I include here a paragraph from her report. It is difficult to even imagine the conditions these people are living under.

" I found ten families living in Afshar area south west of Kabul city in condemned structures without doors, windows, sanitation or electricity. One mother who had nine children 6 months to 14 years old was living in two rooms of the broken down structure which had 2 main standing walls and the other 2 walls were down. The frames and glass of 2 windows did not exist and one could only see 2 holes in the wall. The floor of the rooms had 3 inches of frozen water. She had 6 rows of broken bricks layered on the floor and had covered them with empty cement bags, old straw mats and some other old fabrics to protect her kids from freezing. Her windows were covered with some portion of old UNHCR’s tent fabric. Looking at this situation I was stunned and started crying with this miserable mother. When I gave her LWR’s quilts, blankets, soap, baby’s kits, sewing kit and school kits, she went crazy and started beating herself on her face and head and started crying very loudly, facing the sky and thanking God for the unbelievable gifts she had received. I calmed her down and told her that these beautiful gifts are from LWR and the good hearted American people. She sat down on the snow, thanked me and prayed for those who sent her and her kids these wonderful gifts. She said as I quote, “these are the gifts from God and I thank Him”.

Overcoming in Afghaghanistan - a special video...

I think you'll appreciate the following video. I found this while checking out the website for Smile Train, a charity organization that repairs cleft lips and palates for children in developing countries. Get to the 5 ½ minute video report on what this organization is doing in Afghanistan by pasting the following website into your browser: http://www.smiletrain.org/site/PageServer . Then click on the link in the lower right-hand corner of the home page. The report is both amazing and inspiring. These are the same people which we serve and the caliber of people we serve with.

Special Thanks to …

• Afghans for Afghans, who sent us 640 more hats – making their donation total 1110!
• Yucaipa's Seventh Day Adventist Church, who heard about our project somehow and called with medical equipment to donate.
• Loma Linda University Medical Center and Redlands Community Hospital for giving us hundreds of clean, sturdy boxes to pack our goods in.
• Linda Thomas, a graphic artist, who spent many weekends putting together our pictorial information sheet for the birthing kits.
• Translators, including Sharin Sanders, who have translated our birthing kit instruction sheet and dozens of labels for our cartons into Farsi.
• i-star Financial in Brea who donated twelve computers, flat screen monitors, keyboards, mice, head phones, licenses, and all that is needed to set them up in the vocational school in Jalalabad.

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."

Helen Keller

Workday tomorrow and Update!

Come join us for some service and sisterhood!

Just one workday for this month: It's tomorrow -

Thursday, November 13, 11am - 8pm

Then enjoy Thanksgiving with your family and friends! We have so much to be grateful for! We are thankful for each of you - for your contributions of time and means, prayers and encouragement, and overwhelming spirit of service!

Location: The LDS Stake Center at the corner of 5th & Wabash in Redlands (next to the temple).

This workday, we'll be working on our project that will serve newly diagnosed autistic children in the Inland Empire. We are making 'sensory blankets' - small patchwork blankets made of 12 squares of different colors and textures of fabric. They will be dispersed through the Inland Regional Center.

We'll also begin new baby quilts and have looms and yarn available for hats, and a few other odds and ends of things to do. So come on over.

We may also have some new flat king-size sheets that we want to cut in two and serge the raw edges creating two twin-size sheets - perfect for hospital bed sheets.

We'll be finishing up at the Bishop's Central Storehouse in Colton on one more Saturday at noon. We'll announce the date when we know for sure.

Location: 791 North Pepper Avenue, Colton 92324.

We'll be adding one more special item to our birthing kits, then will finish labeling and stacking our boxes, and wrapping and labeling our pallets. We'll also be weighing and taking measurements of each finished pallet.

Here's a few shots of our recent work at the BCS:

Here's what one of our translated labels look like. Can you see why we like Farsi's number 5 best?

What do you think of this 'classroom kit'? It has ABC books, picture books, a set of animal puppets and other puppets, a couple of bean bags, some shape rings (to teach colors and shapes), and two wall hangings.

"If we are to teach real peace in this world and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we must begin with the children."

Mahatma Gandhi

Here's the latest on...

Parolee Support Update

• Christmas Stockings for families of parolees…

  Over the months, donations of items for our hygiene kits for community parolees have often included especially nice women’s and men's items, ie. perfumes, makeup, bath salts, splashes, especially nice lotions, manicure kits, cologne, etc. Just as last year, we know just how to use these items! The Redlands Police and Corrections Team will be identifying those families of parolees that are especially in need of help this Christmas. These special items will be included in Christmas stockings for the men, women and teenage children in these families. This year, the Step by Step Committee would also like to include a few extras: perhaps a home baked pie or Christmas cookies, or a small tree and some decorations where especially needed. If you'd like to help in these additional efforts, please let us know. Thanks for playing another part in making a difference in the lives of these people – and the generations that follow them.
  

• Current priority hygiene items are:

  shaving cream, fingernail clippers, and men's disposable razors. Hotel samples of anything are welcome and everything on the list is needed. (See side panel.)
  

• If you are new to this site -

  please take time to read up in the side column about our efforts to work with the parolees in our community. (See "Our Support of Redlands' Community Parolees by Providing Hygiene Kits") This has been a very worthwhile and valuable effort. More information will follow in future blogs. If you have a special place in your heart for these individuals and would like to get involved in helping them move forward in their lives, we could use your help. There are a variety of opportunities which take varied time commitments - from just a little to a lot. Please contact jeanarnott@gmail.com if you would like more information.
  

• If you would like to learn of other ways the Step by Step Coalition is working

  to improve conditions and opportunities for parolees who have returned to our community – thereby improving our community – come find out more! The monthly board meeting – which is open to anyone who would like to attend – is held on the first Tuesday of each month at 4:30pm at the Redlands United Church of Christ. It is located at 168 Bellevue Avenue in Redlands (corner of Olive and Bellevue).

"Where someone is trying to be good and kind - that's where love is."

Lloyd Newell in The Spoken Word

Afghanistan II project news

Overcoming in Afghanistan

Click here to read about one successful school in a remote eastern Afghan village and the determination of the teachers and students.

Click here to read about Shamila Kohestani, a young Afghan girl who believes she is the luckiest girl in Afghanistan.

(Please let me know if the above links - or any links - do not work for you.)

Special Thanks to …

• The Modesto 7^th and Riverbank Wards of the Modesto North Stake who delivered goods representing nine months of work, providing school kits, newborn kits, hygiene kits, beautiful quilts and blankets, stuffed bears and other toys, ABC and picture books, clothing and books . It took two cars loaded to the brim to bring the goods to Redlands!
  
  
• Afghans for Afghans who arranged for a donation of 204 sets of knitting needles from Coates & Clark to go with the 3800 skeins of yarn already donated. Afghans for Afghans also sent us 470 wool hats to send with our gifts and have more if we have the room! You can read about their work at www.afghansforafghans.org.
  
  
• 71 beautiful handmade pillowcases donated by the American Sewing Society.
  
  
• The Rotaract Club at Soka University who collected donations including books, educational supplies, toys, and clothing.
  
  
• HD Supply in San Diego who donated towels, washcloths, and blankets.
  
  
• The Orange County Gamma Nu Chapter of the Alpha Delta Kappa Association, a group of professional educators, who provided a multitude of educational supplies and games.
  
  
• Women for Women International who donated 3300 sets of scarves and hats knitted by women in Bosnia and Herzegovina in a microenterprise program. You can read more about their efforts at http://www.womenforwomen.org/
  
  
• Redlands Community Hospital who provided bulb syringes so that we could add them other donations we received so that we could complete even more birthing kits than our original goal of 750.
  
  
• A wonderful mom from Iran who has translated everything for our box labels. It looks like art to us! And a talented young man who took all the translations and prepared them so they could be put in the correct place on the correct label - now that's a feat!
  
  
• A local obstetrician who gave us more towels and surgical drapes to include in our birthing kits.
  
  
• Special individuals - lots of you! - who have been sewing, shopping, crocheting, coloring, cutting and pasting, and much more in your spare time (what's that?!) so that we can fill every single inch of that forty-foot container!

Special activities outside of this month's regular workdays included:

• A young Girl Scout from Yucaipa gathered donations enough to make 21 fleece blankets. She arranged for families in her area to make the blankets.

“The most important thing you leave behind is the stuff that turns into treasure when children find it."

Brian Andreas

It's time to write it down...

Please put your feelings into words...

Over the months, many of you have shared in passing or on the phone or by email your feelings about what your involvement in this effort for the women and children of Afghanistan has meant to you. You've referred to having your eyes opened to things outside your own backyard, helping you to feel purpose and meaning, filling an inner desire to serve, developing new skills or improving old ones, answering a family need to work together, and a myriad of other things.

We can only imagine the blessings that will come to the women and children who will receive our gifts. Maybe someday we’ll understand. But we can recognize the blessings here at home! Our lives have changed as we have served. Sharing those blessings is a joyful experience we want to share together.

So I'm asking a special favor of you: Please would you take a few minutes to put your feelings into words. It could be a one-liner or a paragraph. We'll be preparing a final report and want to include a section about how lives here have been touched by our effort to serve others. That section and the one listing the miracles along the way were my favorite parts of our 1st project's report. So if your life has been tweaked in some way through your involvement - whatever level it has been - please write something down right now and send it to jeanarnott@gmail.com. THANKS!

Henry Ford - you'd be proud! Our assembly lines on September 27 were a sight to behold! Four assembly lines produced the following which were then packed into shipping cartons:

• 739 birthing kits
• 355 hygiene kits
• 225 school kits

In addition, lots of personal notes were written so that each of the kits contain a note from someone in America who cares.

A bunch of quilts and fleece blankets were completed (they got packed before we could count them!), bringing the total packed that night into shipping cartons to 385!

We even had one lone - but very valuable - serger going to serge the handful of surgical drapes we still needed!

We have enough supplies to put a few more of each kit together so our numbers will yet go up.

Take a look at the great time we all had!

Assembling kits

Tying quilts and fleece blankets

Packing 385 finished quilts... and counting...

Writing personal notes

A yummy dinner and more friends!

"Grunt men" and other things we can't do without...

Young Adults loading the last of the 200+ boxes in the U-Haul.

October workdays:

Regular scheduled ones as usual:

Thursday, October 9th 11am - 8pm

Thursday, October 23 11am - 8pm

Location: The LDS Stake Center at the corner of 5th & Wabash in Redlands (next to the temple).

These work days will be different in that we'll be primarily finishing up things here and there so that the few remaining kits can be assembled and packed. We'll also count and pack hats & scarves, ABC and picture books, eye glasses, bed sheets, and more quilts, clothing, and books. A little bit of serging and sewing is left, so if you can come, please do!

We will also be working at the Bishop's Central Storehouse in Colton tentatively on:

Saturday, October 18 Noon

Saturday, October 25 Noon

Location: 791 North Pepper Avenue, Colton 92324.

We will label and stack our cartons on pallets, then wrap, weigh, and measure each pallet. We expect to have 18 pallets - a full load! We have work for women and - this time - also for men. So share this with the men in your life - husbands and brothers and older sons. If you'd like to help on either of these days, please contact Jean at jeanarnott@gmail.com or 909 794-0456 so we can keep you posted if the dates need to be changed.

Here's what it looked like at the Bishop's Storehouse when we were working on Afghanistan #1... in 2004

Here's the latest on...

Parolee Support Update

• If you are new to this site, please take time to read up in the side column about our efforts to work with the parolees in our community. (See "Our Support of Redlands' Community Parolees by Providing Hygiene Kits") This has been a very worthwhile and valuable effort. More information will follow in future blogs. If you have a special place in your heart for these individuals and would like to get involved in helping them move forward in their lives, we could use your help. There are a variety of opportunities which take varied time commitments - from just a little to a lot. Please contact jeanarnott@gmail.com if you would like more information.

• Current priority hygiene items are fingernail clippers, men's disposable razors, and shaving cream. Hotel samples of anything are welcome and everything on the list is needed. (See side panel.)
  
  
• If you would like to learn of other ways the Step by Step Coalition is working to improve conditions and opportunities for parolees who have returned to our community – thereby improving our community – come find out more! The monthly board meeting – which is open to anyone who would like to attend – is held on the first Tuesday of each month at 4:30pm at the Redlands United Church of Christ. It is located at 168 Bellevue Avenue in Redlands (corner of Olive and Bellevue).

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world."

Anne Frank

Afghanistan II project news

Special Thanks to …

• Owners of Sun Medical Supply in Redlands for donating clothing, including authentic women's clothing, shoes, and fabric. They have also graciously provided odds and ends of things to fix up our donated medical equipment so it's in perfect shape!
  
  
• An individual for donating hundreds of book from his private library. Many of these books, like other secondary level books we have received, will go to School of Leadership in Afghanistan (SOLA) in Kabul. This school helps to prepare high school students for a test that, if passed, will allow them to qualify for scholarships to come to the United States for more schooling. Books are what they need at SOLA!

Special activities outside of this month's regular workdays included:

• Yucaipa 4^th ward Activity Day girls tied two fleece blankets. And they’ll be doing more!
  
  
• The Assisteens of Redlands and the young women of the Highland 2nd ward have combined to crochet hats.
  
  

“The more you love, the more you can love."

Lloyd Newell in The Spoken Word

Time for receiving donations is coming to a close very soon. With few exceptions, i.e. medical equipment, please try to have donations in by October 13th.

• Medical equipment: wheelchairs, walkers, canes, crutches, commodes, braces, etc. (all in good working condition)
• Eyeglasses: in good condition
• Clothing: all sizes, modest, new or nearly new
• Shoes: new or nearly new
• Coats & jackets: new or nearly new
• Children's and Juvenile Books: very good condition
• Textbooks – elementary thru university levels: very good condition
• Medical journals
• Sets of Encyclopedias and Dictionaries: very good condition
• Puzzles - wooden or jigsaw: new or nearly new
• Educational Games: ie. memory games
• Sport Equipment: basketballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, ping pong balls, jump ropes, etc.
• Lotion is regular size containers: not samples for this purpose as the packaging takes far too much shipping space for the value of the lotion.
• Twin Size Flat Sheets: new; preferably white, but any color or print ok.

"Be generous with your love and you will never run out of it."

Lloyd Newell in The Spoken Word

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!

Distribution of Women of Faith's First Shipment to Afghanistan in June 2005

Many of you have had an opportunity to see the photos taken of our first shipment's distribution in Afghanistan in June of 2005. Many more of you have not. Finally, they are available to view here. Thanks goes to Fauzia Assifi, our dear friend and a board member of International Orphan Care, who is responsible for the photos. She and Abdullah Farani directed the distribution of our gifts. Fauzia is an Afghan-American who escaped to the United States as a young mother at the beginning of the Russian occupation. She traveled to Afghanistan to be there for our shipment's arrival. She then felt the call to return permanently to serve the women and children of her war-torn homeland. She remains an inspiration for all we are doing here.



Following are photos of the market place in Kabul, Afghanistan.



We'd like to take this opportunity to again thank everyone for your support in our humanitarian efforts, both local and far away. As we approach the ship date of our container to Afghanistan, we invite you to re-double your efforts to see it through to the end. We can't wait to receive more photos of our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan being blessed by our efforts! Onward!

Sales Alert - Colored Pencils!

Wal-Mart – thru the end of August, we're told…

Colored Pencils – boxes of 12 – for 60 cents!

Thanks to those who brought in colored pencils yesterday.  We now need about 180 more boxes. 
If you'd like to contribute for these, you can do the shopping or donate funds for us to shop – either way!  
Thanks

Extra workday planned for Saturday, September 13th!

Get the August 2008 flyer to copy and share.

Important News!!

Our goal for our service for Afghanistan is to be ready to assemble our kits (birthing, hygiene, & school) by the end of September. To help make that possible, we are calling an extra workday in addition to our regular workdays. It will be on Saturday, September 13^th from 9am to 4pm. Come any time you'd like for as long as you'd like.

Just as at any workday, there will be many choices of activities. Sitting, standing, & sewing projects… Because we expect a bigger crowd (catching those who cannot participate during the week) we'll just have more stations set up. Following are choices of activities we'll be working on:

• Sewing & serging: baby gowns, surgical drapes, quilts, wall hangings, school bags
• Sitting Jobs: tying quilts, crocheting hats, coloring, writing notes, preparing picture books
• Cutting Jobs: baby gowns, quilts, school bags, fleece blankets, wall hangings
• Sorting and inventorying: laces & trims, books, clothing, miscellaneous

We'll need a few more sewing machines, so if you can sew and have a portable machine, bring it along with an extension cord if you have one. (Please mark the cord with your name.)

We will need 'supervisors' to help with the various stations. If you can help in that way for a time that day, please reply and we'll get you set up with something you enjoy. It won't be hard – just be there to help women get going on their chosen activity and answer questions. Those of you who are regular workday participants would be great for that, though we can show anyone what to do.

• Thu Aug 14 Come anytime between 11:00am - 8:00pm
• Thu Aug 28 Come anytime between 11:00am - 8:00pm
• Thu Sep 11 Come anytime between 11:00am – 8:00pm
• Saturday, Sept 13 Come anytime between 9am – 4pm

Location: The LDS Stake Center at the corner of 5th & Wabash in Redlands (next to the temple).

Here's the latest on...

Parolee Support Update

• Thanks to the youth of the First Baptist Church of Redlands who recently collected for and assembled hygiene kits. Thanks!! Other congregations throughout Redlands continue to donate items for our parolee hygiene kits.
• Current priority hygiene items are fingernail clippers, pens, and shaving cream. Remember that hotel samples of anything are welcome. Again, everything on the list is needed (see August flyer).
• If you would like to learn of other ways the Step by Step Coalition is working to improve conditions and opportunities for parolees who have returned to our community – thereby improving our community – come find out more! The monthly board meeting – which is open to anyone who would like to attend – is held on the first Tuesday of each month at 4:30pm at the Redlands United Church of Christ. It is located at 168 Bellevue Avenue in Redlands (corner of Olive and Bellevue).

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Afghanistan II project news

Special Thanks to …

• Afghans for Afghans http://www.afghansforafghans.org/ who directed to us a shipment containing 3800 skeins of Coates and Clark wool yarn which was donated by Jo Ann Fabrics. The yarn will be used to re-teach the skill of knitting in Afghanistan.
  
  
• Two more Home Depots, who donated plastic sheeting for our birthing kits! We need three more large rolls to finish, so we're still out asking…
  
  
• Hoopoe Books http://www.hoopoekids.com/index.html, have donated 3600 new beautifully illustrated children's books by Afghan author Idries Shah. International Orphan Care arranged for this donation which contains Afghan folk tales of more than a thousand years.

Special activities outside of this month's regular workdays included

• Hurrah! Women of Citrus Hills Ward in Corona turned in 263 more completed diapers! We couldn't have done this without you!!!
  
  
• Women of Tustin 4th Ward's Relief Society have sewn 91 school bags! You wouldn't believe how timely your service has been!!!
  
  
• Ward Redlands 2nd young women closed an activity by writing personal notes which will be included in our school kits. A few young men even got in the act and wrote a few of their own.
  
  
• Redlands 4^th Webelo Scouts learned about the needs of the children in Afghanistan and prepared surgical glove & pad kits to include in our birthing kits and wrote personal notes to include in our school kits. Thanks scouts!

"Sweet miracle, to see how the largest burdens are carried by the smallest children."

Ardith James

Current Needs

• Donations especially needed right now:
  Colored pencils – on sale right at Wal-mart for 60cents a box! We need a bunch of these - 260 boxes.
  Roll-on deodorant – this style won't melt on the way to Afghanistan. We need 84 more.
• Also, donations of anything on the list below are welcome.
• What you could do at home: For sewers: we have baby gowns cut out ready to sew together. Otherwise: We'd like to include a personal note in each of the birthing, hygiene, and school kits we are sending. (We'd especially like to have youth write the notes for the school kits.) How about taking a packet of 10 cards with instructions that you can take with you to write when you have a few minutes?

Donations are still being accepted

If you have any of the following you'd like to donate, please let us know so we can arrange the best way to get it from you. We are so grateful for the quality and quantity of donations that have already come in!

• Medical equipment: wheelchairs, walkers, canes, crutches, commodes, braces, etc. (all in good working condition)
• Eyeglasses: in good condition
• Clothing: all sizes, modest, new or nearly new
• Shoes: new or nearly new
• Coats & jackets: new or nearly new
• Children's and Juvenile Books: very good condition
• Textbooks – elementary thru university levels: very good condition
• Medical journals
• Sets of Encyclopedias and Dictionaries: very good condition
• Puzzles - wooden or jigsaw: new or nearly new
• Educational Games: ie. memory games
• Sport Equipment: basketballs, soccer balls, tennis balls, ping pong balls, jump ropes, etc.
• Lotion is regular size containers: not samples for this purpose as the packaging takes far too much shipping space for the value of the lotion.
• Twin Size Flat Sheets: new; preferably white, but any color or print ok

Lending Library

If you've been waiting for Greg Mortenson (author of Three Cups of Tea) to come again to our area, he's coming soon to San Diego. (See below.) The venue is very large – 4600 – so it isn't expected to 'sell-out'. Tickets are free but required. I talked to Lisa Worman (number below) and she says groups of 15 can get reservations in advance. Otherwise, arriving by 2:00 pm is probably early enough to get a seat. Go to: http://commonexperience.sdsu.edu/three_cups_of_tea_bio.html to get more details about Greg Mortensen and what he's all about. We have the book and audio book of Three Cups of Tea in our Lending Library if you haven't read it yet.

Three of our women had the opportunity to listen to Greg Mortenson speak a few months ago in Palm Desert. We're including some of their thoughts again for new readers.

I had the privilege to hear Greg Mortenson, philanthropist and author of 3 Cups of Tea, One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time, present a slide show of his work in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was wonderful! It was uplifting and inspiring and heartwarming. It reaffirmed my desire to help our sisters in those war-torn countries and gave me hope that my little piece of service does indeed make a difference--a significant difference to a real individual.

One story in particular that Greg told pertains to us here in Redlands: In one region of the mountains, the death rate for women in childbirth can be anywhere from 5-15 mothers every year. One girl was educated in one of Greg's schools--and went on to become a midwife. Now she has been serving as a midwife in her area for 4 years--and there has not been even a single woman die in childbirth since!!! Wow! Education and supplies make a difference--and here we are, in our beautiful, wealthy and comfortable California, assembling kits for midwives in Afghanistan! I am sure that our service will be significant--just think of the midwife who gets a few supplies--how she will be able to help the mothers she knows...our kits may indeed save lives. WOW.

I cannot travel the world; I cannot raise thousands of dollars and orchestrate the building of schools in foreign lands; but I can spend some time preparing midwife kits, school kits, hats, mittens, toys and quilts for others. As I serve here, I am confident that I am serving over there, too.

Thanks so much for providing this opportunity to me, to all of us in the stake. It is great work.

I came away with the reminder of how desperate the situation is for many in the world (children were running barefoot in the freezing cold). I'm amazed that they survive at all! I have no doubt that every hat, blanket, diaper, etc. will be gratefully put to good use.

September 26, 2008 at 3:00 PM
SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY
Open Air Theatre
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182
Contact: Lisa Wortman
Phone: 619-594-2817
Email: lwortman@mail.sdsu.edu http://dus.sdsu.edu/commonexperience/three_cups_of_tea_mortenson.html

"The reason we love them is because we serve them."

Cray Carlson