August 1998 Part 1
Feed My Sheep --Nancy
As country directors it has been our job to seek out the poorest of the poor and find ways in which we can help them help themselves or offer temporary relief while they get on their feet. We have found ourselves walking the corridors of hospitals which are inadequately supplied; we’ve visited with children in shelters where they have been taken by the police from pipe tunnels under the streets where they lived. Just this week we found a sanitarium for children who are being rehabilitated from the diseases of malnutrition. This is a country with many single mothers who are trying to hold their families together. We’ve talked with many of them. Unfortunately this country also struggles with the scourges of alcohol abuse, unemployment, domestic violence, and the diseases that result from the use of tobacco and alcohol.
There are heroes and heroines who are working diligently to stem the tide of the world as Mongolia has become more accessible to the imports—both good and bad—of the modern world. We try to find them. The Mongolia Child Rights Center is one such place. We delivered clothing to them that they will take to children in prison.
A 40' container with neighborhood kids on top
Sitting under the bedroom window of our third-floor apartment is a 40-foot container sent from the humanitarian center in Salt Lake City. It arrived in Mongolia via ship and then rail to be placed on the edge of a large concrete pad where the local children play soccer. It is filled with medical supplies and equipment, clothing, sewing machines, fabric, thread, shoes, and winter boots.
Walkers in the back of Bataar's car
After it was delivered some of the elders and sisters took part of their preparation day and helped us unpack some of it so we could do an inventory. After the count was taken, they repacked it and everyone was impressed with how clean and orderly everything was. The inside of the container was immaculate and each module expertly wrapped in heavy plastic and stacked on pallets. It was amazing to think of all the miles it had traveled without a thing being spilled or crushed. Our sincere thanks and appreciation go to those workers in the humanitarian center who are so expert at their end.
I want to tell you some of the specifics of what is/was in the container. A blood refrigerator for the one blood collection center in all of Mongolia (which up to this time was using a small domestic refrigerator), three centrifuges (there were none in the blood center), a first-aid module, an anesthesia module, an obstetrics module, a hospital supply module, a central supply module, two children’s supply modules, one pallet of sewing machines, 20 bales of fabric remnants, 40 bags of shoes and winter boots, 47 bales of used clothing, 50 bags of socks, and additional fabric and thread. Each module contains approximately 1000 pounds of goods and each bale weighs 100 pounds (a reason for being grateful we’re still blessed with physical strength.) (page 304-306)
