Poptarts

We started on our week long trip last Saturday with a loaded down VW van. Terry had to learn again how to shift with his left hand and how to signal turns with the control on the left. (Our little KIA has it on the right.) To begin with, he was signalling with the windshield wipers! The van was stuffed with 16 boxes of health manuals, 34 boxes of megaphones, a heavy box of 272 C batteries,a box of stationary supplies, 25 large spools of string, a laminating machine, 13 quilts and 4 boxes of children's clothing. We cold barely fit our own luggage in. At our first stop in Lesotho we unloaded a great deal of our

inventory. It will be used for the mobilization of the measles campaign in September. The branch members will be making volunteer badges and using the megaphones to spread the word throughout the communities. The church will be working with the Red Cross, World Health and the Lesotho Ministry of Health to vaccinate 444,625 children under the age of five.After our visit to Lesotho, we headed for East London and met with a very dedicated gal named Lisa von Tonder who we'll work with in setting up rural gardens so orphans can learn to support themselves. She also directed us to the Spar shopping market where we can buy some American products. The owner is married to an American girl so she insists on having some of these items in stock. We met him there and he was so excited that we were asking for the special goods that he said he could take us around all day to show us all he had!! We were pleased to pick up some root- beer, poptarts, French's mustard, Kraft salad dressing, Honey-nut Cheerios, etc. Too bad the word got around to the other missionary couples about the root-beer....we are going to have to share now.Onward, we met with a few other organizations in Grahamstown that help the physically and mentally disabled people there. Perhaps, the church will be helping with crutches, sewing machines, and other requested items.The pictures that are included were taken at a soup kitchen out in one of the poor townships in Port Eliazbeth. It was set up to help feed the people over 60 whose pension funds get stolen by their grown children leaving them with nothing to live on. As you can see there are a lot of people under 60 in the pictures and they are not turned away. They had already eaten by the time we found our way there so they were just waiting for the blankets to be given out. We had 13 quilts and 30 blankets to give away and wished we had a hundred more.

I hope they call me on a mission

We were at our desks when Brother Elks (our second level boss) came to see us with two missionaries (young elders). They told us of a 14 year old girl who was the daughter to a friend of a member....got that? This girl was born physically disabled and has never been out of her house and hasn't even been taught the a,b,c's. They were wondering if we could give them a wheelchair for her so she could at least get out of the house once in a while. We were very happy to do that and told the missionaries to follow us to the warehouse. Just up the road from the area office there was a police road check where they randomly pull over cars. We were waved on but the elders were pulled over. We had to pull over to wait for them. There was a female police officer that questioned them and found out that there was an outstanding ticket on the car but said she would take care of it. Anyway, it seemed to be taking a long time and I made a comment to Terry that they are probably giving her the first discussion. When we got to the warehouse we asked what was taking so long...they said they were getting her information, teaching her a little bit and setting up an appointment to continue. That road block was set up to bring the gospel into that lady's life!