Dear Pastors and Friends,

The end of March began a flurry of activity at BIEM. Our warehouse was brimming with donations of gently used clothing and other goods for shipment to Ukraine as humanitarian aid. Our visiting family, the Buykos, worked long, hard hours—often into the evening—as they checked each garment to make sure all zippers were working, that buttons were in place, and that there were no rips or other flaws that would disqualify a garment. All of these donations were sorted by category, boxed tightly, and stacked.

When our shipper delivered an empty 40-foot container for this next shipment, the Buyko family began the initial process of loading items that had odd shapes to carefully fill each possible air space. (For example, items such as walkers, wheelchairs, and bicycles can be challenging when it comes to utilizing all possible spaces due to their shapes.) But then on a Saturday morning a crew of volunteers gathered at the BIEM warehouse and worked together to load it to about 90% capacity. From then on, the Buykos once again took over and lovingly hand-packed the remaining space.

Then, on April 6, the container of relief began the long journey to Ukraine. Although there is a wide variety of items aboard, the bulk of this load is clothing and household good donated by people like you. This video, “Your Donations, Now on the Way,” shares about the contents and the volunteers who loaded it. We hope you enjoy it. Here’s the link:

https://vimeo.com/user37287229/donations

Blessings to you!

Sam & Amy Slobodian