Whittlesey Christian Church supports an orphanage and mission school in Zambia, and intends to send out a container full of necessities for the children. This Mission is run by the mother of one of our church members, who has spent time over here and is well known to us, so it is nice to know what a worthwhile and well-run project we are supporting. One of our members has been out there to help, and has seen at first hand what is happening and what is needed to help keep things going.
We have mentioned here and there, without overtly publicising it, the fact that we need a lot of clothing, shoes, computers, toys, medical equipment, beds and all kinds of other things. It has been amazing how the community at large has rallied round with items, including the local school here, market traders, parents of schoolchildren, workmates etc. So this event, labelled Boxing Day, involved sorting all the things, and packing them into the FREE boxes offered by a local company, and taking them to the FREE storage space offered by another local company. The next challenge will be loading the container up in June, and sending it out on its NOT FREE as yet journey to Africa.
On Saturday 29th April, about 20 people, going on half the church, turned up to the Boxing Day. The chairs were cleared from the main church sanctuary, tables laid out, and it looked like the nearest we will ever get to a church jumble sale, with the stage piled high with bags and boxes to be sorted. The quite energetic people sorted out the donations into piles of similar items, and boxed the whole lot up. Two very young ladies were particularly good at cleaning trainers and football boots prior to packing. The very energetic people then moved the boxes, in a horsebox and a White Van, to the storage unit. The very energetic people also did some ground and shed clearing outside and filled up a mini-skip while they were there. We opened up Sue's Soup Kitchen for lunch, Big Urn and the Tea Queens did their bit, the dishwasher did the washing up, and amazingly Operation Boxing Day was achieved before tea time! Here are a few pages of photos, on which I don't feature because I am busy either taking photos or being a Tea Queen.
