MMDC — #3 Big Shipment Day

This week we are working with 2 other churches from Iowa in Gladbrook and Cedar Falls. Originally, Trinity in Charles City had signed up for 16 people, but only 4 committed, so Jay Culter contacted other churches in NE Iowa. There are 3 from Gladbrook and 4 from Cedar Falls First UMC for a total of eleven who are staying on campus. In addition, each day there are volunteers from the greater Springfield, IL, area.

Here is the group: (row 1) Carolyn and Luba (Gladbrook), Susan and Karen (Charles City), Laurene, Lisa, and Bobbette from Cedar Falls, (row 2) Steve (Gladbrook), Chris (Cedar Falls), Carl and Jay (Charles City}.

Carl and Jay assembled 3 of the 9 the school desks made by members of Trinity UMC in Charles City. This is a quality control measure to make sure that everything was cut correctly. They screwed and bolted all of the desks together to make sure they were aligned properly—and with minor adjustments they were just perfect! (Guess what they’ll be doing tomorrow...)

Meanwhile Susan and Karen and Laurene worked ALL DAY assembling one-handled teacher school bags for Haiti. These were cut out and serged together at MMDC by other volunteers. The three of them hemmed the top, and then they attached and reinforced the handles. 

It gave them quite a sense of accomplishment when they counted up at the end of the day and discovered that they had completed 60.

Today is the day the big shipment to Central America was loaded into 3 semi-trailers. All of the alleyways in the first warehouse were full of supplies for this shipment. All of the staff and volunteers gathered and joined hands to “pray out” the load.

Warehouse worker and forklift operator Brad Walton explains that this is the largest single shipment ever from MMDC. It will go to South Com US Air Command in Norfolk, VA, and then will go on the USNS COMFORT. The ship will be at sea for several weeks. Items for Haiti (the last port of call) were loaded into the container first today (first on, last off). Two more trailers were loaded next, and almost everything on the floor of the warehouse was shipped out.

 Then Brad shooed everyone out of the ware house so that he could load the trailer with the forklift.

So we continue to work on Personal Dignity Kits. The other members of the team from Gladbrook and Cedar Falls are working on an order for 500 PDKs. They completed 264 today.

Stacked high on shelves in the warehouse remain flood cleaning buckets, ready for use when a call comes this spring. These will go to disasters within the United States because of their weight.

The second warehouse has donated sewing machines and medical equipment and wood for school desks. Bicycles are also repaired for use by pastors in other countries.

The work continues at MMDC on a third warehouse. Some of the Cedar Falls volunteers helped set bolts today for the doorways. 

The work of the Lord continues. There is an order for 5,000 school bags as well as the 500 PDKs. Two of the bins for one-handled school bags are empty. It’s strange to see the inventory list on the side of a bin at ZERO when it previously held 1,500.

If you are following our journey and would like to help, we will be sending more supplies to the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church in June. Contact any of the Charles City volunteers: Jay and Karen Cutler & Carl and Susan Jacob. 

We will accept your financial donations, or we will provide you with patterns to sew hospital gowns, layette gowns, or receiving blankets, or you may join us at our next Stitching for Missions Day in April. UMCOR has lists of supplies that you may donate for school kits, health kits, birthing kits, layette kits, sewing kits, and cleaning buckets. Many hands make light work...

MMDC -- #2

We arrived in Chatham, IL, last night. This morning we had safety training. We have to go through this training once a year to make sure we follow the proper procedures. It is held in the chapel. Here we are right afterwards.

Right across from the chapel is the third warehouse under construction. MMDC continues to grow and serve more and more people all over the U.S. and throughout the world. 

Jay unloaded the school desks made by members of Trinity UMC in Charles City.

Monday was a day when we performed numerous tasks. In the workroom school kits were assembled. Here Susan and Carl bundle 3 ink pens with a rubber band.

 Jay helps pack the boxes with completed school kits. Between 12 and 14 completed school bags go into each box. The number of kits, today’s date, and the box’s weight go on the outside. Then 28 boxes are stacked on a pallet to be shrink-wrapped for shipping.

Jay is stacking 2 spiral notebooks and a pad of filler paper to go into school bags.

Karen and Carl are opening packages of student blunt-nosed scissors. When they come in a blister pack, the cardboard backing is recycled and the plastic is discarded. Only the scissors go into the school kits (eliminates waste and weighs less for shipping).

Karen and Susan are bundling 3 ink pens for the school bags. All of those cardboard boxes are broken down and flattened to be recycled.

Jay and Carl are scraping the gum off the bottom of donated school bleachers. Then the boards will be run through a planer, the corners routed, and then cut into seats for school desks.

Carl uses a putty knife to scrape gum off the bottom of bleacher seats.

Jay flips over the bleacher seats to remove the gum from the bottom.

Susan opens packages of spiral notebooks for school kits.

The cellophane wrap is removed from packages of spiral notebooks.

Karen and another volunteer bundle 3 ink pens for school kits.

Susan packs school kits into a box. A plastic liner keeps the school bags dry in transit. Then the boxes are taped shut.

Karen helps assemble school kits. Each of the bins contains pencils, rulers, protractors, erasers, pencil sharpeners, pens, scissors, and boxes of crayons. The ruler and protractor are placed inside a spiral notebook for shipping so that they will be flatter and won't break. 

We found out that a shipment is being prepared to go out this week. It will fill 3 shipping containers the size of a semi-trailer truck. Included will be hospital and school supplies going to eleven countries in Central America.

The shrink-wrapped pallets of supplies are labeled for each of the eleven countries.

This pallet of supplies is going to Honduras.

These school desks are bound for Haiti.

Flannel and birdseye diapers are going to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. There are also layette and birthing kits.

 School bags are headed for Panama.

Cover Them With Love quilts like those donated from Trinity UMC are going to Haiti. 

Hospital “gowns” will clothe children at Grace Children’s Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. These are shorts and shirts for little boys.

 Little girls’ gowns are an A-line dress and shorts. Almost every hospital gown stored in the warehouse is being sent in this shipment, so we’ll be sewing more.

Sewing machines on the left are going to Honduras, and the blue barrels filled with hospital supplies like band-aids are going to Guatemala and the Dominican Republic.

These school desks are going to several Central American countries.

 Used hospital beds have been donated for Grace Hospital in Haiti.

From the photos I took today you can see where all of the things that members of Methodist Churches in eight states in the Upper Midwest have donated for UMCOR (United Methodist Committee On Relief). Midwest Mission Distribution Center in Chatham, IL, is one of seven such UMCOR distribution centers in the United States. Many hands make light work...

To those of you who are reading my blog and have donated school kits, health kits, birthing kits, sewing kits, hospital gowns, layette kits, diapers, etc., the members of TEAM TRINITY thank you for your support. We also appreciate all of you who have sewed school bags, Cover Them With Love quilts, hospital gowns, layette gowns, and receiving blankets, have knitted or crocheted baby sweaters, and have built school desks. In addition, we value every dollar that you have donated for shipping costs of kits going around the world. Together we can make a difference!

MMDC March 2015 blog post #1

On Sunday, March 15, Jay & Karen Cutler and Susan & Carl Jacob will leave right after church for Midwest Mission Distribution Center in Chatham, Illinois (near Springfield).

Here we are last November at MMDC.

We will spend the week doing whatever tasks we are asked to do for this UMCOR site. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has 7 of these sites around the U.S., and this is the collection and distribution center for the Upper Midwest.

Those school bags, layette kits, birthing kits, health kits, Cover Them With Love quilts, and school desks that we have all been working on will be weighed in on Monday morning. (Then when those supplies are shipped around the U.S. and to other parts of the world, each load is weighed out to keep an accurate accounting of all donations.)

Two other Iowa churches from Gladbrook and Cedar Falls are also sending volunteers this week. We will stay on campus in the dorm, sharing the noon meal and going out to eat in the evenings. In addition, day volunteers will be coming from churches in Illinois and Missouri. We all work together and get to know each other as we do this mission work.

The MMDC staff will assign us tasks. The Lord loves a willing worker, so we could be building desks in the wood shop, sewing hospital gowns or school bags, sorting and counting donations, packaging boxes of health kits or school bags for shipment, preparing a newsletter for mailing, cleaning and organizing the warehouse, and more.

If we are lucky, there will be a shipment to “pray out” while we are there. Staff and volunteers gather in a circle and bless those who donated, delivered, and will receive the items after the semi is loaded. That makes us volunteers feel so good because we know we helped, and the load of supplies will help others.

You may participate in our journey by including us in your prayers. After seeing the photos and details of our activites posted here throughout the week, please consider joining us on our next trip.

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