Bags Are Packed - Mostly

Things are starting to fall into place. A few days ago, I was feeling rather stressed. I had so much school supplies, medical supplies, learning materials - puzzles, educational toys, books, granola bars, etc all over my bedroom. Bag after bag, box after box! One night my husband had to get to bed as he works very early, and I was determined to get some packing done. Mr. Nice Guy just curled up with suitcases on his legs! *smile*

Sharing His Bed With Donations!

Don't get me wrong - I am very thankful for all the donations!!! But at the same time, I knew I only had a maximum of eight suitcases to fill, and that only if we all travelled with only the clothes on our backs, and no clothes in the bags!

Thankfully, the majority of the donations (95% of them) came in as cash. This made it much easier! As I mentioned before, I filled a suitcase with school supplies; I then took donation money and filled a second one with more school supplies. As well as this, I went to the discount drugstore and spent $450 on over the counter medications - 20 bottles of 250 children's multivitamins, 10 large bottles of cough and cold meds for children, tubes and tubes of the following: antibiotic ointment, polysporin eye ointment, lidosporin ear drops (for ear infections), antifungal creams for ring worm and other skin problems, lots of bandaids, and 15 bottles of children's pain relievers. It really adds up fast, and I wish I could take another suitcase of the stuff! This filled a third suitcase.




We had a wonderful homeschool cleanout at our house!! I have so much good homeschool materials that don't get used, simply because we have more than we need!! I don't want to sell the stuff at a garage sale because it won't get the 'right price', and I can't be bothered to go to a homeschool swap. So when I suddenly realized that I could put it in my suitcases for Ethiopia - oh, boy..... I was pulling puzzles, games (scrabble), logical thinking games (great for math) etc. There went suitcases number 4 and 5!



Then we have a suitcase that we are filling with frisbie, skipping ropes, soccer balls and pumps, hackey sacks, bubbles, and balloons - about 6 - 1/2 lb bags of balloons! Every street child I see will get a balloon or two!!

One of our opportunities in Ethiopia is to help out the ladies that make jewelry. This is a job that the women can do to feed their children. I managed to find wonderful beads, jewelry wire, beading trays, and other things for this group!!

Jewelry Making Supplies

And of course, there is the box of toys from the toy store. I managed to squeeze and cut some packages down and get them all into one single cardboard box. That box will have packing tape strung around and around it to make it super tight and secure!! Too much good stuff in there to lose!

New Educational Toys

I had a box of books that I was hoping to give to my sister, if she had chosen to homeschool, but since she didn't I held onto it until I found someone who I knew would appreciate them. This series of books is called I Want To Know About... It covers every topic you can think about, but it is written on a level for preschool - grade 5.




So with that, plus Magic Treehouse books, which teach about history on a child's story level, and Boxcar Children books, and then a handful of easy readers on interesting topics, I managed to fill another suitcase!! Very exciting. My husband told me, "Books are heavy." And I responded, "Yeah, and school supplies get used up! Books are forever. You may need to build them a bookshelf when we get there!" There is nothing like a good book to get a child excited!

Anyhow, by the time we were done, I was stressing out because there was *no way* I was leaving one item behind!! *smile* So over the last two days, I was moving items from one suitcase to another, trying to find the best combination of weights to get just the right amount in there and not go over the limit.

Then last night, each time I finished filling a suitcase, I would weigh it on my bathroom scales, then write a slip of paper telling me how much each bag weighed, and then stick this to the bag, so that I didn't make the mistake of adding more things later.

In this manner, I was able to completely finish packing 7 1/2 bags. The girls have stuff in one bag, along with donations. The boys? They don't get a suitcase *smile*. They are travelling light! Wait til Colt comes home from camp and finds out that he has to fit his clothing into a 17 lb bag. When he went away to camp this summer he barely fit all he wanted into 50 lb allowance! Should be interesting!

Ray and I also packed half our clothes into our carry-on bags, and have a few items in the other bags!

So knowing that seven bags are done is such a relief!!

But then I knew that the local paper was doing their story today, and it was asking for donations. I began panicking, envisioning boxes of school supplies coming in! I called the paper yesterday morning, in time to have her change the wording. She asked for cash donations only. Whew!!!

So now we are done, and we have one last bag to finish packing - now to stay under the limit with that one! Then early next week, I will drive to the little town north of us, where the airport is. They have volunteered to ship half our stuff to the main airport (four hours away) ahead of us. You are only allowed 50lb per person on this little 18 passenger plane that we are taking. And so, out of kindness, the airport manager is shipping it all for free!

On top of all the wonderful filled bags, we have $2500 in donation money!! Imagine what good we will be able to do with all that money!!! Now we are just praying that God will show us the places that we are to go with this money - where it will be well spent.