17 Dec 2017 Christmas boxes for refugees

A dear friend and fellow missionary, Jill Roberts entered a post on her blog and I just copied it because she did such a great job explaining this week.  Here is an entry from her blog:

And the celebrating just keeps going on!  Our Thanksgiving dinner committee had a special lunch together this week to celebrate a "job well done" as they say.  Of course, I felt a little guilty being included since we were in London.  But I'm never one to turn down a festive occasion and I had done my part before the big day.  We were at San San which is one of the best Chinese restaurants in Frankfurt.  It does sound a bit convoluted eating Chinese in Germany, but it was fabulous food and the company equally delightful.  Just some of the wonderful missionary sisters to be serving along side here in Germany:  Anita Canfield, Marlene Lindsay, Sue Goodall, Mona Bateson, and Karen Orlowski.  

For several weeks, I have been organizing Christmas boxes for our refugee mothers and their children at the Krift location.  (This has taken Jill many hours and lots of love to organize the putting together of these boxes sg.) This week it all came together with the wonderful help of the women at our ward and so many of the missionaries working in the Frankfurt Area Office and mission.  Each box contains flour, sugar, rice, lentils, and canned tomatoes in addition to two gifts for each child in the family and a handbag for each mother.  Also, the Krift employees mentioned that all the children were in need of new underwear.  So with the help of our former Area Refugee specialist, Sister Stay, we were able to add two pair of undershirts and bottoms for each child.  Heart-shaped  pillows, and miscellaneous school supplies filled out the boxes.

And then it was time to wrap the boxes!  With the help of more wonderful people whose hearts are continually turned toward giving service to others, we met and had everything wrapped in under an hour.  Many hands made quick work of the task.  

Valerie Sabin, Kay Lundquist, Teresa Dewey, Jill Johnson, Sue Goodall, Paula Thomas, and Janet Nelson and I got started as others soon joined us.  Our ward members generously donated new toys they had collected to include.  So, in addition to the Christmas boxes, the children will each get to choose a wrapped gift.

We tried to fit most the toys into a neutral or toddler category but there were some where we just had to make a boy or girl designation.  We are dealing with a very traditional culture and I know the boys will be adverse to using the "Frozen" games.  At the Rebstok camp, the boys wouldn't even play Uno with a deck that had Anna and Elsa pictured!  It will be fun to see the children's reactions and how much trading may take place.  But we are happy that we can bring any extra joy to them at this time of their lives after what they have faced getting here. 

The wrapping crew: (standing)  Karen O., Carol Nelson, Linda and Ian Carroll (our Aussie friends from Down-under have never had a cold Christmas!), Val S., Sue G., Teresa D., Paula T., (kneeling) Jill J., Kay L., me, and Janet N.

Santa could not have a better group of elves this year.  Some other elves are not pictured but also helped in many ways.  Everyone offered to do anything that needing doing: sewing, picking up extra items, donating food, helping me sort the items, driving the handbags in from Bad Homburg.  One woman in our ward asked me if we could use the purses as she has a few she wanted to donate that were not just like new, but were brand new in some cases.  I thanked her but explained that I would need one for each of the 16 women and assumed that was more than she had to give.  Not a problem she said. I laugh just thinking how happy her husband was to get them out of their house and deliver them to us! But seeing such unselfish generosity from everyone makes one wonder how to capture this season for the entire year.

All sixteen boxes and lots of toys ready to take to the Krift party later this week.    

Thank you Jill Roberts for this entry......Unfortunately I came down with a really awful cold and was unable to attend the party where all these boxes were handed to the mothers at Krift refugee camp in association with Caritas, Catholic Charities.  I am thankful that I was able to help with the wrapping but Jill did a wonderful job of organizing and putting this all together so all we had to do was wrap the gifts.