Clothes and Linens and Shoes

By Guest Author Jennifer Burley

Before

People have been so generous to New Life Children’s Home.  Mission teams have left their sheets, towels and pillows.  They have brought shoes and shirts and pants and sweaters and coats of all sizes.  Many of them were still in boxes and plastic bags when we arrived.  We determined that organizing the supply room would be one of the priorities of our week.

After many, many minutes of turning around and around and shrugging and asking, “Where do we begin?”, we decided to start with the linens since they were clean and easy to identify.  We designated some available plastic bins for sheets and others for towels.  Pillows we put in two big stacks.  We threw away one that was in such bad condition that no one would ever have wanted to put their head on it!

Fortunately, someone had begun to organize the children’s clothes.  With shelves on opposite sides of the room for boys’ and for girls’ clothing, we had a starting point.  Pants and shirts were in separate sections and there was a shelf for each size – small, medium and large.

Because the room had no windows, we brought in our battery-operated fans and set them at our face level.  Then the fun began!  It is amazing what people will donate just to get it out of their own home.  We tossed out bikini bathing suits, old worn out size 3X t-shirts (I don’t think there is anyone that size in that area of Honduras!), used undergarments (clean and not-so-clean), an inflatable kid’s swimming pool raft, stained shirts and pants, some girls’ blouses and shorts that would have raised eyebrows even in the U.S.

In packing for our trip, we had used large lawn trash bags to protect our suitcase contents in case of rain.  We gathered some of those bags and eventually filled three with unusable items from the clothing room.

Our team had brought 100 new pairs of crew socks so we were able to replace the old worn out ones.  We put some clearly labeled bins of not frequently needed items (jackets, blankets, infant clothes) on top of the shelves and were able to store a crib mattress on top of them. It had been taking up way too much space in that small room!

Then there were the shoes – so many shoes!  Boxes, bins, bags and piles of them on a shoe rack that reached to the ceiling. Our team members tied matching shoes together, sorted them by size and style and organized them on the rack.  It was beautiful!  Besides the full shoe rack, there was one tall, round bin full of crocs and flip-flops.  Because our team was able to take a new pair of shoes for each child, these other used ones will be replacements later.

As we moved some boxes, we discovered a sewing machine that appeared to be in good condition.  One of the goals of New Life is to teach the children life skills, including sewing.  We don’t know how long the sewing machine has been in that room, but it might still be hidden if God had not laid that organizing project on our hearts.

It is such a wonderful feeling to know that now the missionaries can easily find the right size clothes they need as they serve these precious children.

After