I pushed the weekly review to Tuesday this week - no special reason except to shake things up for myself a little bit.

One of the things I’ve had as a goal was to clear out my long-arm room in the basement. At one point it was a mess - completely full of various blankets! I was very uneasy with that - because that is not why we made it. I am so afraid of my own tendencies to accumulate stuff that I wanted to get it cleared back out almost entirely, if not entirely.

So I’ve been working to that end.

This is what it looks like now.

So what all did we do this week?

Let’s start back with last Monday.

On Monday I had already arranged for a large pickup of food at a local wholesale place at about 2:30 pm before we loaded the trailer for the Tuesday trip.

After that, we loaded up the trailer for the trip the next day.

On Tuesday, I worked by myself and made up a few more quilt bags and I received and unpacked a lot of boxes from things I had ordered. I then took the quilt bags to the church and unloaded them. I was feeling the need to just work by myself.

After Mike arrived home about 1 am, Wednesday wasn’t extremely profitable, but we did receive quite a few boxes from FL - via FedEx. Now they seem to be rolling on through quite nicely. We got 6 on that one day.

On this day I also prepared 3 boxes to be sent to another missionary friend here in Poland who asked me for 17 of these quilt sets to give to their Ukrainian refugees.

I packed up 6 in each of these boxes and shipped them via courier to her. (But that’s all - from now on, if local people want them for their people, they will need to come and get them - it’s too much hassle to ship them!)

Interestingly enough, our local courier guy isn’t very happy with me for ordering so much stuff. Why would that be? Does it really matter to a delivery guy where they deliver to?

If so, why? We have a super easy delivery place as the gate is always wide open and they can drive right in - and then just drop them right off - no ringing doorbells, no running up several flights of stairs. I can’t even imagine it being easier to deliver a bunch of packages!

Anyway…he picked up these three boxes after leaving us several - kind of grumbling. Maybe I should just get used to it. After all, they weren’t overly heavy - about 21kg each (46 lbs). I’m giving him work…shouldn’t that be cause for gratitude? Hmm.

After we met the guy with the boxes and coming back home to the house, then our job was to bring some of the in the house so I could unpack them and inventory them. Mike and I did that. It is a lot of work with 6 - I can’t even imagine how hard doing 79 is going to be! Obviously we will have to not overdo it physically! It is taking me a while to open up each bag and put it all out on the table, then write down what we have on a sheet. Then later I take it up to the computer and log it into a database Rachael and I share.

Here are three of the boxes in the house.

So on Thursday I decided I needed to get started on the next trip. Since Mike hadn’t completely decided on what/where, I decided that we would use $6000 that a lady named Lisa had raised for us to use on this effort. So, while Mike was deciding for sure where, I decided to get busy spending the money. For the most part, the basics are all the same - so we shopped quite a bit on Thurs. morning.

With four people, each with a full cart, a person can spend money much faster than by yourself. Here is what it looked like after just an hour or so of shopping and with all that help.

Then, on Friday, I asked for help, and I had five helpers - and they/we all packed up quilts and bags until I ran out of pillows.

Here’s a few second video showing the ladies in action.

We also got word from FedEx that they had more boxes for us. At this point, I figured we were down to our last two. I was hoping for them both!

When we drove up to put the newly finished quilt cases in the building, I noticed one huge Fed Ex box sitting by the garage door. I thought that was strange AND I was hoping for two.

I asked my husband about it.

He seemed to think the guy who called him probably hadn’t shown up yet. Sure enough - he hadn’t. While we were behind the building unloading quilts, the very first Fed Ex guy I had met was there with the LAST box of this original bunch from FedEx of 31 boxes. All the rest of the boxes are supposed to be coming in one load - which will be enormous!

I managed to snag a video of box #31 as he drove up and then opened the back of the truck. Obviously he understood my English as I said this was the ‘last box’. I mean the “last box of the first 31 that were sent individually”. We know there are 79 more - but these are the last ones of the ones shipped in this way. The rest are being sent in one HUGE load. I have no idea how all that is going to work out, but we have received every.single.one.of.these boxes complete.

Thanks, FedEx. Also a huge thanks to Scott Fortunoff of Jaftex, who worked with Rachael in connecting us with FedEx. There were not a few emails back and forth with a man named Sebastian who worked with customs and FedEx. And lots of forms to fill out and send back. But I needn’t go there, do I?

So here is my husband with this last box. It’s actually not number 31 as we had already gotten that one in. I think it was actually #24.

On Friday we actually received that box at about 12:45 pm our time - which was right about 6 hours ahead of the crew in FL finishing up sending the HUGE shipment on its way.

On Saturday I spent a while inventorying each of the last boxes and matching up quilts to pillowcases. I also spent time on the computer ordering more items needed - both for the load going out on Thursday and for the quilt bundles themselves.

I also took over a few of the things that have arrived in boxes from ordering on line.

The things I’ve ordered - big tubs of baking soda, big packages of baking powder, cinnamon, boxes of ladies’ hygiene products (pads), some buckwheat flour and yeast. I had also sneaked another trip to the grocery store (like Aldi) and picked up baby formula, more sugar, oil and a few bags of diapers early in the morning.

Here’s a photo of the garage at the moment. The volume should increase dramatically after one more day of shopping.

I know some of you are wondering about how I’m doing financially with all the buying I’ve been doing.

I don’t want to raise more than I can feasibly spend and you all have been very generous. I’ll let you know a little before I really need more. Once we get the bill for all of the boxes recently shipped in that huge load and all that gets settled financially, we will know better what we have. One thing I don’t want to be like is the federal government who has money to spend and “has to” spend it or they lose it - and they get careless. You all are so responsive and generous, I do not want to abuse that generous spirit.

Anything you choose to give, we will use for this effort! The needs are truly great and I’m just now learning of more local opportunities.

There is a donation button on the front page of the website. Here’s the link.

We appreciate you and all your cheering and encouragement! You all have been unbelievably supportive!

Thank you so much for coming along on this seemingly wild journey along with me/us!

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!