After much prayer (thank you all) and paperwork delays, the 5 40-foot containers are released and the Malawi staff are unloading them this week at our Njewa Center outside of Lilongwe, Malawi. These donations represent hundreds of donations and thousands of volunteer hours. Included in the shipment are over 500,000 meals, 20+ pallets of clothing, orphan home supplies, school desks and supplies, and several pallets of sewing supplies for our Widow's Program. Kim Witte helped load a container in Silverdale, and on her last week she is there to unload the same container. Here is part of her email message to me. "Some FUN news to share with you from Malawi.....yesterday one of the shipping containers entered Njewa! I, along with about 15 other people, helped unload the container. It was VERY exciting for me because this is the SAME container that YOU helped me pack in Washington State! There were desks and teaching supplies coming off of the container....the books for the Secondary School were being off-loaded one by one.....lots of clothes and toys...smilepacks....THANKS again for helping me sort through items at the COTN warehouse! :-) Kim" Here are a few photos Kim Witte sent me in her message.
Here is Kim as part of the "unloading chain". That box is full of School SmilePacks from Emily Chan's group in California.
Unloading some of the school chairs, along with good quality clothing in the pink-dot and blue-dot boxes. The boxes with the COTN logo are full of vitamin-enriched lentil and rice food. These meals will provide a balanced diet for thousands of children this summer, fall and winter.
More food boxes to be stored at Njewa Center. Combined with the other shipments that arrived this month in Sierra Leone and the Dominican Republic, we have sent over 1,000,000 meals overseas in the last 4 months.