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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Moved and getting settled

So, we moved on October 1. Then Carl was gone from the 4th to 9th to his Non Commissioned Officer Corps reunion at Ft. Benning, GA, and I took my mom to visit my sister from the 6th to the 16th. NOW we are emptying boxes in earnest. We’ve been able to get both vehicles in the garage for a week, and the other day we really sorted the boxes and organized them together in the garage so that it will be easier to find things.

Today they finally fixed the street out in front of our condo. They dug out the gravel that filled in where the water and electrical lines came into the property. The cement is poured and the street will soon be ready to drive on.

Here's the garage--somewhat organized--with room for both vehicles.

Here is our unit on the right. Our neighbor’s guest room is tucked behind our guest room.

The address is 411 Meadow Lane.

From the garage we enter the laundry room.

Looking into the kitchen (and dining room) from the laundry room.

The left side of the kitchen shows the under-the-counter LED lights.

The living room has a gas fireplace in the corner. The master bedroom door is to the left of the fireplace.

We have LOTS of room in the master bedroom. There’s a recliner beside the bed...

...to watch TV. Through the door you can see the office area.

 Here’s the office beside the stairway to the basement.

The master bath has two sinks...

...and a walk-in shower.

Love my little shampoo niche in the walk-in shower!

The master bedroom has a walk-in closet.

 The front foyer has room for a bench. Off to the right is the guest suite separated from the foyer with a pocket door. There’s a linen closet in the hallway to the guest bathroom.

The guest bathroom has a combination tub and shower.

We moved this vintage mirror from the Riden Circle house for the guest bathroom.

 We have a covered patio off the dining room.

You’re invited over for a tour of our new home. We find it very comfortable. At present the guest bedroom and the basement (just under the kitchen and office area) are being used for storage. My goal is to find everything (and making a pile for my 3rd garage sale this year) in a month and have it all put away before Christmas.  Wish me luck!