SHIPPING 3rd WORLD STYLE

      I thought you might enjoy peeking in on what it is like to try to ship and  deliver a 40-foot     ocean going cargo container of medical goods into a developing country. Let’s try Senegal     in western Africa. Keep in mind that Project C.U.R.E. will deliver approximately 180 such containers - just this year - into needy 3rd World hospitals.

(Dakar, Senegal: October, 1999:) I’m headed back to Dakar for the third time in a year. Based on my earlier needs assessment, our Denver Project C.U.R.E. people gathered the appropriate medical goods and sent them on their way to Houston by rail and then by ship across the Atlantic Ocean to the Port of Dakar. I was asked to return to Dakar in October and make a formal presentation of the unprecedented gift of medical items to health and government officials. The people of Senegal want a special ceremony because in the history of the West African nation, no organization has ever brought a medical team to serve and then given such a generous gift of love. The value of Project C.U.R.E.’s investment in dollars, including both the medical team and the container load of goods, was well in excess of half a million dollars.

Mohammed Cissé and his brother Dr. Cheikh Cissé met me as I walked down the ladder from the plane in Dakar. Dr. Cissé and Mohammed almost seem like family to me now that I’ve visited Dakar three times in one year.

Monday, October 4

Today proved to be another lesson for me in Third World bureaucracy. It’s so easy to get accustomed to America’s service-oriented business environment. But most of the world’s business still runs on seventeenth-century concepts and methods. This is especially true of Africa. Our objective today was to complete the necessary paperwork and transactions to clear the Project C.U.R.E. cargo container through customs and the Port of Dakar so it will be available for the presentation ceremony later in the week.

Mohammed and I left the hotel after breakfast and walked to the main government building, which houses the ministry of health. I had met Senegal’s minister of health and his main staff people on previous visits. The man highest in rank under the minister holds the position of administrateur civil principal. He is the chief decision maker who makes things happen, or not, in the country’s health-care system. Mr. Makhtar Camara currently fills that position.

Mr. Camara has a military background, but he warmed up quickly and genuinely expressed his appreciation for Project C.U.R.E. coming to Senegal to help. Mohammed and I were ushered into the office of the health ministry’s finance director, where we met Ousmane Ndong. We discussed the necessity of declaring the container load exempt from any tariffs or duty obligations, since it’s a humanitarian shipment. Mr. Ndong agreed with the exemption request. We also discussed the possibility of his office securing a large truck to deliver the container from the docks to the national pharmacy warehouse in Dakar and distributing the donated goods to the individual hospitals and clinics. He agreed to try to find some funds to help us.

At 11:15 a.m., we found out that the paperwork for the container had already been messed up. Customs had presumed that the cargo contained donated pharmaceuticals and had sent paperwork somewhere for review and to test the goods. I called their attention to the official shipping manifest that clearly stated the load contained only consumable medical supplies for the hospitals and clinics, such as needles, syringes, catheter tubes, latex gloves, and so on. We then had to go on a wild-goose chase to retrieve the papers.

Once the paperwork was back in our hands, we had to begin the process all over again. The processing system Senegal employs is terribly archaic. My closest guess is that we had to go through thirty individuals to clear the shipment, and each had to inspect the paperwork and hand-record the information separately in his own book.

If they found the least little problem, real or perceived, they sent us back to a previous bureaucrat or to a new set of paper pushers. If they could send us away, it would keep them from having to enter all the information by hand in their books and give them an excuse for exercising their authority. It was a most disgusting and frustrating process.

The ministry of health, or santé, gave us a full-time assistant, El Hadji Owague, to help us through the process. It even took him a full two days to run through the maze, and most of the bureaucrats along the way were his everyday acquaintances. El Hadji is one of Mohammed Cissé’s former schoolmates and close friends. He told us that it would normally take weeks to process the paperwork, and we were expecting to get it finished in two days!

From the health ministry we went to customs. It too was a circus. From customs we went to the port authority in downtown Dakar. We encountered a problem there and had to retrace our steps to the health ministry for more approvals and big red stamps. The port authority had lost their part of the paperwork and accused us of never giving them any copies. After visiting three different offices, we proved by the numbers in one of their books that they had indeed received the paperwork. But no one wanted to get involved in finding the papers. Finally, we found them on one bureaucrat’s desk, but he wasn’t in the office to sign off on them. No one else wanted to take the responsibility to process the papers, so Mohammad, El Hadji, and I found a little restaurant and had a typical lunch of rice and fish before resuming our wild-goose chase.

Before the day was over, I got weary of climbing broken concrete steps in buildings, where the grimy walls were all painted a government yellow, and walking down hallways of broken and missing tiles. Mohammed and I began to joke about how to gauge the importance of the men in the offices by whether they had fans on their desks, real air conditioners in their windows, or nothing at all.

Finally, in the late afternoon, we made it through the processing and headed to an old building crammed with unused United Nations UNICEF trucks. The man there was a forwarding agent or broker. He didn’t even have his paperwork right, so we had to retrace our steps to get him caught up. I told Mohammed and El Hadji that I would bet the United Nations didn’t even remember that their UNICEF trucks were parked in the old building. Another international UN bureaucrat had probably put them in there and then moved on to Zimbabwe or Somalia.

Before we finished for the day, we returned to the office of the port-authority chief three different times, and three different times we returned to Mr. Camara’s office, plus all the other lines and offices. During one visit back to Mr. Camara’s office, the health ministry planned out the presentation ceremony and location and wrote up a press release for the Dakar newspaper. The officials are genuinely desirous of putting together a respectable occasion to receive the over one-half-million-dollar gift from Project C.U.R.E.

Tuesday, October 5

This morning Mohammed, El Hadji, and I again walked from the Novotel hotel through the narrow streets to the health ministry, avoiding the snarled traffic in the roadways. El Hadji picked up our paperwork, and the health ministry gave us a van and a driver to take us out to the port authority offices, where the container was being stored.

I thought our maze running was over, but I was mistaken. We did bump the quality of the maze up a notch or two, because nearly all the offices there had air-conditioning and even some computers. The big difference was that we were now dealing with a shipping, storage, and forwarding company, which actually handled the containers. Their operation ran a little more efficiently because there is a bit of profit involved in the international process, and people who mess up or just don’t show up for work, which is typically the case with government workers, get fired from their jobs.

Along with the profit aspect, the men at the port office assessed a fee that had to be paid before they would release the shipment. The shipment arrived in Dakar on September 18, but no one in Senegal did anything to get the paperwork process moving until we arrived. By the time we hit the storage area, where the container was physically held, the agents informed us that we had exceeded our grace time, and we would have to pay for two days of storage. I was finally able to talk the top man, chief of port Elimane S. Gwingue, into waiving the charges when I showed him the original Declaration of Donation certificate, which I just happened to have in my attaché.

But the officials still needed funds to move the container from the port holding area to the national pharmacy warehouse. So back we went to the director of finance at the ministry of health to beg for the money.

A little after 6:00 p.m., Mohammed and I arrived at the storage lot and prodded the workers to load our container on a trailer and hook it onto a big semi-truck.

Then Mohammed and I crawled up into the cab of the big truck and actually rode with the drivers to deliver the container to the warehouse in a shanty part of the city. Dinner tonight tasted good, and the hotel bed felt wonderful.

Next Week: USA Culture Shoc

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THE STATE OF THE UNION AND ELECTIONS

“He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.”     Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution

That language of the Constitution here is not very specific, but usually, the procedure refers to the President appearing before a joint session of the United States Congress where he highlights the wonderful job he is doing and ceremoniously enlists the aid of Congress to support his upcoming legislative agenda of political and economic priorities. As recent as 1981, President Jimmy Carter didn’t even show up at a joint session, but sent in a written report as to how he thought things were going.

At the heart of the constitutional request, however, is an insistence that there be careful communication between the democratically elected leaders, the qualified voters, and between the designated branches of the government. When the President communicates with the people it is called a State of the Union address (or maybe, an occasional press conference . . . or a Tweet). When the voters communicate with the established government it is called an election.

The communication process is absolutely necessary. If entities or certain power brokers endeavor to highjack or circumvent the flow of necessary communication, then individual ingenuity will generally create a new method to communicate. A successful democracy allows for constituents to group themselves into like-minded ideals or philosophies regarding political, economic, religious, and cultural issues. The like-minded group that represents the largest number of qualified and participating voters is awarded the opportunity to lead the democracy. If a different like-minded group is able to present a more popular idea and garner enough legitimate votes to prevail in the election, then they are given the opportunity of leadership. It’s really pretty simple.

But we should neither be disheartened nor necessarily surprised when the system experiences occasional turbulence, even if it includes trillions of dollars and billions of lives. What is imperative is that we not become sloppy, lazy, or disconnected from the effective process. It is imperative that we reassess where we have determined to go, how we are going to get there, and just why it is deemed so necessary that we prevail in arriving.

Once that is determined and clearly articulated, it is then time to take the pragmatic steps to get the rocket ship on course and to stay on course. That will always require periodic correction burns to alter or correct the truest pathway of the rocket ship to the desired destination. Circumstances will change. People in control will change. Even desired destinations may change. But the final determination of the success of a constitutional democracy will be dependent upon the free flow of accurate and efficacious communication and the ability to make periodic correction burns through the majority of the voters.

Even when NASA sends a rocket to the moon, they know the rocket will eventually get a little off course because of extenuating circumstances in space. The first set of guidance instructions will need to be enhanced and reaffirmed.

NASA Mission News reported on February 8, 2011, that its Stardust spacecraft marked its twelfth anniversary in space with a rocket burn to further refine its flight path. The half-minute trajectory correction maneuver adjusted the path with a blast that consumed 2.4 ounces of fuel and altered the spacecraft’s speed by 1.3 miles per hour. The spacecraft had already traveled 3.5 billion miles since its launch.

We have just come through an interesting political campaign, elections, and inauguration here in the United States. We are presently experiencing a midflight correction burn. Now is not the time for the constituents to get weird. It is imperative that we not become sloppy, lazy, vengeful or disconnected from the effective process. If we are to continue to maintain the successful endeavor of our constitutional democracy we must now double our efforts regarding our careful communication between the democratically elected leaders, the qualified voters, and between the designated branches of the government.

There will always be need for midflight correction burns to reach the ultimate destination. The tricky part comes in recalculating the correction burn from your incorrect position. No one will argue the necessity of getting back on track, but how many ounces of fuel will it take, what new angle will be required, and what new speed will be necessary? Those are the real issues for serious consideration right now. In the days ahead, listen attentively to what the leaders are saying to you with their State of the Union messages, news conferences and Tweets. Then, in just a few short months you will be able to radically communicate in perhaps the most powerful way known to civilizations – you can participate in the election and actually vote.

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WHY HELP PEOPLE YOU DON'T KNOW

(Journal: L’viv, Ukraine: September, 1999) From the cancer ward, we moved to the prison cells holding the tuberculosis patients. The emaciated bodies of the men packed into those rooms told stories in split seconds of lives being lived out in centuries. Some of the TB patients were too weak to even sit up to receive the gifts. Meeche simply laid the items on their beds close to their heads.

On our way out, I gave the hardened nurse with the kind eyes my card and had Meeche explain to her that if she would like, I would be willing to work with her in the future to see that she receives essential supplies for her clinic, such as needles, syringes, bandages, ointments, and catheters. She tried to communicate with us that in the prison clinic, she really has nothing at all to work with.

We returned down the steps, out through the maze of locked doors and hallways, and into the room with the dirty window. The guard behind the window slid our passports back out under the glass one at a time. When we got outside into the sunshine, I slipped the flash attachment off my camera and deliberately put it back into my brown camera bag as the guards watched. I was careful not to take any pictures once we left the prisoners cells. I knew the guards appreciated my not pressing my luck.

As we drove out through the heavy steel gates and back out onto the street, I was trying to sort through a lot of thoughts and emotions. Previously, I hadn’t thought too much about medical conditions in Third World prisons. I suppose it would be a full-time job just supplying medical goods to those wretched, hopeless places throughout the world.

Wednesday, September 22

Lloyd and Biggy came to the hotel at 6:30 this morning to take me to the L’viv International Airport. The old Russian military plane started up its two noisy prop engines, and away we flew to the capital city of Kiev. From Kiev, my Lufthansa flight took me to Frankfurt.

Why would Project C.U.R.E. go to the Ukraine to help people we don’t know? We have to walk a fine line in places like Iraq, North Korea, Cuba, Pakistan, and other parts of the world we would never have the opportunity to enter if we weren’t a purely humanitarian organization. “A full cup takes a steady hand!” I’m very aware that one glaring mistake on my part, and someone seeking vengeance against America could kill me at any time.

But Project C.U.R.E. is so much more than a humanitarian organization. It would be sufficient reward if we just gave a cup of cold water in the name of a loving God to people in the eighty countries where we work. But we have distributed millions and millions of dollars’ worth of life-saving medical goods in the name of God and have fulfilled a role not many people easily distinguish. It’s subtle, but it’s the most effective form of promotion. We create and lend influence and clout where it matters most. And Project C.U.R.E. is better at it than any organization I’m aware of.

The Hurleys, the Kangs, and the Pyatnichkos in Ukraine have been pouring their lives into ministering to the people of Ukraine. But their efforts are limited in many respects to the arithmetic of one plus one plus maybe one more. But by enlisting the help of Project C.U.R.E., their efforts suddenly have the potential of expanding exponentially. They themselves, plus their noble desires, are infused with clout and influence and credibility, which will literally catapult their effectiveness by quantum bounds.

When Project C.U.R.E. goes to a location, meets with top government officials, and suggests that millions of dollars’ worth of life-saving medical supplies could be pumped into their country, the officials totally drop their defensiveness and accept Project C.U.R.E. They know they’re responsible to care for their citizens, but they don’t have the money or the means to supply that medical care. And here Project C.U.R.E. comes offering help so they can become heroes to their own people. It would be foolish and counterproductive for them to refuse our help.

Perhaps the key element in the whole process is that Project C.U.R.E. refuses to take credit for the help. Instead, we strategically transfer our clout and resources to those already on the scene. If those officials should question whether our offer of help will be backed up with action, all they have to do is wait a brief period of time until the first container arrives with the valuable cargo inside. Suddenly the local entities that have been struggling for recognition and acceptance in the community become heroes, and the doors swing wide open on a local and national level, and avenues of permission, acceptance, and clout are made available to them.

God has been eager to bless Project C.U.R.E. and multiply the effectiveness because we have been willing to empower local organizations and institutions to become incredibly effective as we keep a low profile rather than seeking the limelight ourselves.

The Hurleys, the Kangs, and other ministries have been trying to break into the Ukrainian culture and the professional and political framework for years, but they are seen as outsiders. But with the assistance of millions of dollars’ worth of medical goods for the common people, an enhanced image for local and national leaders, and personal accomplishment for the hamstrung medical community, the Hurleys and the Kangs will be celebrated as people who are able to make miracles happen so that everyone can become winners.

It’s no wonder that in Andijon and Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Dushanbe, Tajikistan; Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Nouakchott, Mauritania; and a thousand other places, the formula has worked so well. Because of this unique formula, God is being honored, his kingdom is getting more exciting, and eternity will be different from what it might have been.

Discouraged workers are getting to take a second breath, and burnout is diminishing because God has chosen to bless Project C.U.R.E. with such a simple piece of the puzzle. In the business world, we refer to it as leverage, in which a small object placed in a strategic position can move a very large object with a desired result.

Why would I be willing to leave the home and family I love and travel all over the world to help people I don’t even know? Because I want to be faithful to the gift of the simple formula he gave Project C.U.R.E. to bring multiplied results to his kingdom. Many churches will never understand what we do, and many folks miss the spiritual connection between a humanitarian organization like Project C.U.R.E. and eternal goodness. But the impact of Project C.U.R.E. around the world is empirically measurable. God is blessing our work, and those subtle results will be the only rewards needed forever.

That’s why I do what I do when I’m far away from home. What an honor and a privilege!

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HOW DO YOU DELIVER HOPE IN UKRAINE?

(Journal: L’viv, Ukraine: September, 1999) By that time, Meeche was down the corridor with the lead guard. The guard with the most stars on his epaulets gave a head motion to the man holding the door-opening mechanism. The top of the door had a steel bar that slid in a groove. The groove was positioned so that it was lower on the face of the door where the bar latched into the door casing. With the help of gravity, the latch always slid in a downward angle when being locked. Another sliding bar was located toward the bottom of the door. The guard always kicked that bar open instead of bending over to move it.

Once the top and bottom bars were slid into an open position, a strange mechanism that looked more like a socket wrench than a key was pushed into a square, steel-latch box and turned. The cell doors were solid steel plates but were covered with wooden strips to soften the appearance of the hallway.

Once the cell door was yanked open, there was yet another locked door with steel bars. It was quite an ordeal just to get into the cells. When the first set of doors was opened, it suddenly dawned on me what we were seeing. Meeche hadn’t indicated, nor had Lloyd, whether he knew that we were only visiting the hospital cells of the prison.

Once the doors were opened, the stuffy, stale, humid air came rolling out into the hallway. There was only one barred window in each cell, and the windows were tightly shut. Beds were placed in the cells so closely that they nearly touched. As we entered, nearly all the patients were asleep, which immediately raised my suspicions that the officials probably kept pretty good discipline through the liberal use of injected chemicals.

The first bed in the first cell held a young man in his late teens or early twenties. He had a strange-looking shoulder joint, and there were large nodes growing straight out from his shoulder. I bent over to take a closer look and then looked at the nurse. She indicated that I was in a cancer ward by whispering the word oncology. I pointed to the nodes, and she shrugged her shoulders as if to say she didn’t know. I decided to take a chance. I pulled out my camera and slid the flash attachment onto it. I looked into the woman’s soft eyes and motioned that I wanted to take a picture of the strange shoulder. She nodded her head in agreement.

Then the nurse pointed to the worn, soiled bedclothes the sick prisoners were wearing. I asked Meeche what she was trying to tell me. She wanted to know if we could bring clean gowns, blankets, and sheets. They had none. I pointed at the bedclothes with my camera and snapped a picture. The guards all looked at me when the flashes went off in the dimly lighted room. But none of them said anything because they knew the nurse was working with me.

By that time, many of the men were out of bed, standing up to receive the quarter loaf of bread, sugar packet, and candy from Meeche. With each disbursement, he also placed in the hands of the prisoners a small Bible written in Ukrainian. I kept snapping photos. I figured I would continue until someone told me to stop.

If I close my eyes, I can still see the looks on the faces of those pitiful, cancer-ridden, male prisoners as they received the gifts and the Bibles. My stomach turned as I looked in the corner of the stuffy cell. A two-sided wall stood about four feet high in one corner of the room, suggesting some sort of room division. I peered over the wall and saw the same number of red plastic pans on the floor as the number of prisoners in the cell. There in the corner was a sewer trap they could squat over to relieve themselves. I tucked my camera under my arm and worked my way toward the door and back into the hallway.

The next four or five cells were pretty much in the same dreadful state. The only difference was that as we proceeded down the corridor, the patients’ conditions were more severe. One man had a wad of gauze stuffed into a cancerous hole in his neck in an attempt to stop the drainage. The nurse indicated the middle-aged man had throat cancer.

I inquired about treatment for the cancer patients. She told me through Meeche that they didn’t have access to chemotherapy or radiation. I presumed that the cancer we had seen was pretty much the prisoners’ death sentence. I relished even more the smiles and hands clasped together in a gesture of thanks as the men received the bread, candy, packs of sugar, and especially, the Bibles. I thought to myself as I continued taking pictures of Meeche and Lloyd handing out the gifts, These men are on their own death row, no matter what crime they committed that landed them in this awful place. The only hope they have now will have to push its way off the written pages of the Bibles they are holding in their dirty hands.

At the end of the corridor were two cells on the left-hand side. The heavy doors were bolted and latched just the same as those on the previous doors—first the heavy steel door veneered with wooden strips, then the steel door with bars. But behind such ultra security resided not men but women prisoners who had cancer. The first cell was filled with younger women. Some were in their early thirties. Some were too sick to even lift themselves out of bed to receive the gifts. I pressed my luck and kept on shooting pictures.

Some people say Ukrainian women are the most beautiful in the world, with their straight, proud postures, slender bodies, long legs, fine features, and fair skin. But those women, as young as they were, had been drained of everything in life but hopeless despair. They knew they were going to die in that cell. A couple of them had wild eyes like a frightened colt. But a couple of them could have been the mothers of my grandchildren.

The next room took the starch out of me. We were met at the door by an old woman wearing a faded, red scarf tied under her chin. She wore a ragged dress and was barefoot. A gauze pack covered most of the left side of her face from under her left eye to her jaw. On the table next to her dingy bed were metal food utensils with crusty soup in one and cloudy, tan water in another. When Meeche gave her the bread, sugar, candy, and Bible, the old woman melted into tears. She held on to Meeche’s arm as she sobbed. She reached up to wipe her tears away and put her hand back down when she ran into the gauze bandage. Lloyd handed out the rest of the gifts in that cell.

My heart was broken into tiny pieces. On this crisp September day, someone brought ten minutes of love to that old Ukrainian woman who was dying in prison with cancer. She had no way of telling that the autumn sun was warm today, or that there was a cool wind blowing gently, twisting and turning the oak and chestnut leaves and tugging at them until they fell softly to the ground. She had probably lost track a long time ago as to whether it was Tuesday or September or nearly a new millennium. But someone had entered that prison cell and opened those heavy steel latches so the love of God himself could pass over the steel threshold and wrap tightly around her in her lonely misery. I prayed that God would help her find truth, light, and hope and even a sense of freedom as she read the pages of the book she held so tightly in her hands. She was holding on to the bars of the inner door as the guard slammed shut the outer steel door with the wooden strips and kicked closed the bottom latch.

I don’t know what the old woman did to get thrown into that prison or just how long she has been there, but a feeling swept over me as I stood staring at the closed door that I would somehow like to take her place and let her go free.

Next Week: Why Help People You Don’t Know?

IRON GATES AND PRISON WALLS OF UKRAINE

(Journal: L’viv, Ukraine: September, 1999) Lloyd and Biggy wanted to keep pressing on. We next drove to a very poor part of L’viv, where they wanted to show me a soup kitchen they established for orphans who have been left on the streets to fend for themselves. The soup kitchen was on the back side of a blockhouse complex, up on the second level. The small space included two rooms and a hallway. One room was where they cook the soup. Women were standing, tightly squeezed, between two stoves. On the stoves were two caldrons of steaming carrot, onion, and beet soup. In the hallway, two old women sat on stools scraping clean the vegetables to be dumped into the soup.

A high-energy, short Ukrainian fellow named Meeche is in charge of the soup kitchen. How he ever gets fifty kids packed into the other room challenges my imagination. But he showed us how the stray kids not only eat there for free but also gather consistently to sing religious songs as Meeche accompanies them on the guitar.

Biggy left us at the soup kitchen, and Lloyd and Meeche took over the tour from that point. Meeche asked if I would accompany them to the prison. I agreed. He quickly walked to the kitchen and grabbed a long, plastic-handled knife. In the small hallway, he stopped to sharpen the knife on a stone.

I couldn’t resist chiding Meeche for being crazy enough to think they’d let him into the prison with the long, sharp knife. He just laughed as he stuck the knife into his little canvas bag.

In a lower part of downtown L’viv, Meeche pulled his old station wagon over to the curb and then motioned for us to follow him. He grabbed a very large cardboard box from the back of his wagon. We went down the block and around the corner to the left. Then we took two steps down from the sidewalk and right into a state-run store—a leftover relic from the Communist days. People were jammed into the store, pushing and shoving to get to the counter.

Meeche talked to the extremely unmotivated woman in her old, state-issued, dirty smock behind the counter. She was so obviously used to saying no that her head was shaking no even though she agreed that Meeche could buy some government-subsidized loaves of bread. He had her give him enough loaves to fill the large cardboard box, and then he purchased a case of packets containing about two cups of sugar each.

With our treasures, we paraded back to the station wagon and climbed back into the vehicle. Meeche backed up across the street and positioned the station wagon right in front of a couple of solid-steel gates. Soon a stern-looking uniformed man with a gun came out and opened the frightening gates for us to drive through.

When Meeche had parked the car earlier, I had noticed the tall walls on one side of the street, which stretched the length of a couple of blocks. But I never realized that it was the site of the old prison we would be visiting. But once inside the outer gates, there certainly was no question that we were in a very secure prison. On the inside walls were guard posts and razor-wire fences.

When we stopped, Meeche jumped out of the station wagon and popped open the back doors. He reached into his canvas bag and proceeded to whip out his long, sharp knife. I was hoping the guards wouldn’t shoot him on the spot. But they just stood around and watched as Meeche pulled out the large box of bread and began cutting the oblong loaves into four pieces each. He then gave the pieces to Lloyd to stuff into a large, green, plastic bag.

Quite a group of guards had gathered by that time. I had my brown camera bag slung over my shoulder and had taken pictures of the store where Meeche purchased the bread, as well as the large steel gates of the prison. Meeche told me the guards would definitely not allow any photo taking inside the prison. I certainly could understand the reason for that. Lloyd said he once got a few feet of video-camera footage before they shook their heads at him.

When the bread was all cut and sacked, and Meeche and Lloyd picked up the case of sugar along with miscellaneous sacks of candy, the entourage of guards accompanied us across the open compound toward a steel door with bars. We went up about four steps into a dirty waiting area that was tightly enclosed and had a dirty service window on one side. There, we were asked to shove our passports through a crack under the glass.

Once our passports were checked, a heavy door at the other end of the room clicked, and the front guard ushered us into a long hallway with steel-bar doors on either end. After going through another secured hallway, we entered an open courtyard. The smell as we walked outside was strong enough to gag me. On the other side of the courtyard, we walked past a cage that held big black guard dogs. Another solid steel door opened in the middle of a wall, and we entered with some guards in front of us and some guards following us.

Our pace was slowed because we had to follow two other guards up a flight of stairs as they accompanied a prisoner back to his cell. The prisoner was about twenty-two years old, could hardly move one foot in front of the other, and looked like death warmed over.

Once on the second floor, we were introduced to the prison nurse, and she invited us into her clinic. She was a short, hardened woman in her early fifties, and her hair was a weird shade of peroxide blonde. But her kind eyes surprised me. I immediately wondered what kind of woman would be a nurse in an old Communist prison, where she had absolutely nothing available to treat her treacherous patients.

Next Week: How Do You Deliver Hope in Ukraine?

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A CHANCE TO LIVE THE LIFE

(From my Journal: Africa: Malawi, Tanzania: October, 1998:) For many years I have been intrigued by the life of Armand Hammer. I read his biographies and his thick autobiographical work. As just a young doctor, he had visited the starving people in the Ural Mountains of Russia. In the early 1900s following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Hammer, of his own volition, scraped together one million dollars to buy grain and shipped it to the needy areas of Russia, asking nothing in return.

Armand Hammer caught the attention of Lenin, the new Russian leader, who eventually invited Hammer into a relationship with Russia that lasted for many years. Except for the period of time when Joseph Stalin made it unsafe for anyone to be in the Soviet Union, including the Soviets themselves, Hammer kept returning, keeping a doorway of communication open between the USA and the Soviet Union when every other avenue was sealed off by the Iron Curtain.

I ran across a segment in Armand Hammer’s autobiography that I believe gives great insight into his thinking and behavior. He once said, “The first thing I look at each morning is a picture of Albert Einstein I keep on the table next to my bed. The personal inscription reads, ‘A person first starts to live when he can live outside of himself.’”

People who live fulfilled lives here on Earth learn somewhere in their journeys that they must move past the experience of living their lives just for themselves into a position of living their lives to help others. In my book What’cha Gonna Do with What’cha Got?, I kept pounding away on the ideas that our true measure of greatness will always be determined by our care for others, not accumulation for ourselves, and also, that the motivation behind our accumulation should be the recognized opportunities for distribution. In other words, living beyond ourselves or outside the tightening circle of our own personal concerns is our only real chance to live a fulfilled and satisfying life.

In another place in my book, I tried to explain the concept that what I hoard I lose… what I try to keep will be left and fought over by others … but what I give to God and others will continue to return forever. And since our greatest fulfillment in life is realized through our giving, Albert Einstein’s inscription on Armand Hammer’s signed photo that “a person first starts to live when he can live outside of himself” really makes a lot of sense.

As I stand back and look at what has taken place in the short history of Project C.U.R.E., I can see that the real significance of Project C.U.R.E. just may well be in giving many people an opportunity to become involved in living beyond themselves. They find an avenue of expression and service that is centered on helping others. They start looking out instead of always in. They may become involved in sorting medical supplies or loading a cargo container or packaging pharmaceuticals, but they begin thinking about the people who will be helped by their efforts. They do it for others, but soon something unexpected happens within. Their selfless behavior begins to work as a worth-building situation within themselves, and hidden inside the package of giving of themselves, they find true reward and fulfillment. I believe there is something miraculous and wonderful about trying to give ourselves away.

Mission Accomplished in Colombia

While we were bumping along in our little 4x4, Justin and I had quite a bit of time to process the things that were taking place during our trip to Colombia. We talked about how best we could continue to involve the students of Colorado Christian University in international awareness and ministry. He made some very insightful observations and suggestions for future involvement. He also expressed a strong desire to work for Project C.U.R.E. after he finishes his schooling. I challenged him to begin working now on the concept of finding an organization or group of supporters who will stipend his work for Project C.U.R.E. and encouraged him that the people at Project C.U.R.E. would consider it an honor for him to come on staff whenever he is ready if we can figure out the financing of the arrangement.

I am really excited and stand in awe at the way God is bringing just the right people at just the right time to assume the many tasks involved in the future growth of Project C.U.R.E. Apparently, God is really concerned that we continue the endeavors of bringing help, healing, and hope to thousands of hurting and discouraged people around the world. I believe he personally knows and cares about each of those hurting individuals and is somehow pleased to continue blessing and guiding the efforts of a humble, crazy organization called Project C.U.R.E.

At about 7:30 a.m. we left the parish house with Andrew and drove downtown to the archdiocese offices to pick up Vienne (pronounced “Vee-eh-na”), who is in charge of all social outreach for the diocese.

Vienne is very familiar with the barrios and the invasion cities near Montería. We left the center of town and drove north across an old metal bridge spanning the Sinú River; then we proceeded into what is normally swampland. Along the river, well over a mile long and three-quarters of a mile wide, were the strangest assortments of living shelters one could imagine. Whatever could be gathered together to make a front wall, a back wall, and a roof became someone’s house. It was all just an uncreative assortment of boards, tin, cardboard, and plastic. Many times there were no inside walls. The shelters just ran together, and the squatters arbitrarily staked out their claims under the protective roofs, sheet metal, and thatch.

There are thirty-two such invasion cities in Montería. The people there are the poorest of the poor. Many of the inhabitants are single mothers with four to six children. The term invasion city connotes the fact that many people at one time came rushing to the urban squalor looking for refuge from one major crisis or another. A high percentage of the people are there to escape violence or guerrilla warfare. Many of the husbands had been killed, and there was nothing left for the widow and children to do except move to the city, where the mother could possibly find work to keep her family together. But once there, the invasion-city dwellers find that there is nothing for them to do and no employment available. They then go into survival mode and try to exist on nothing.

The difference between an invasion city and a barrio is usually the fact that the invasion cities were built nearly overnight out of junk and trash. The barrio areas, by contrast, had some approval and sanction from the city to be built. The people in the invasion cities do not have any business being on the land they have invaded; they simply had to have a place to get their families in out of the hot sun and rain. In the barrio areas, the city usually gives the dwellers permission to build on the land or sells the land outright to the people for a small price. The shelters in the barrios are usually constructed out of gathered stones or concrete blocks. But the base level of abject poverty seems to be about the same in both the barrios and the invasion cities: no jobs, no money, no hope.

I went with Vienne into several of the squalid huts. The floors of all the invasion-city units were mud. With the heavy rains we have been experiencing and with the cities being built in a natural swamp area along the river, all the floors were soggy with standing water in the corners and outside. The sewage ran down the center of the makeshift roads or behind the huts. Pigs, chickens and ducks all did their best to forage for any scraps they could eat. I watched the precious little babies crawl along the floors through the mud and wondered to myself why far more of them don’t die from lung congestion and parasites.

Over the years of observing some of the worst situations of misery around the world, I have somewhat been able to deal with the filth and poverty. But I can never get away from the thousands and thousands of empty eyes that even years later haunt me as they pleadingly look at me from their terrible conditions and register clearly as our eyes meet, “I have no hope.”

In Montería, it is not a situation where the people are just lazy, and the results of their idleness have caught up with them. Those sad humans moved to the city to escape some awful trauma, only to arrive and find themselves in an empty pit of hell that had slippery, slimy walls of swamp mud prohibiting them from ever climbing out. At times like this, I find myself with absolutely nothing to say because of the big lump in my throat and the feelings of absolute helplessness.

I know there is nothing I can do to socially, economically, or physically “fix” it. Then God seems to quiet my heart and say, “Don’t try to fix it. Just get home and send one more cargo container of medical supplies—just one more … just one more.”

Later, we visited and assessed a very large hospital in the city. You would have had to have been there to see and believe the impact and result. Both the doctor and the head nurse were nearly in tears; they just could not believe that someone out of the blue would make an appointment, view their hospital, and brag about them and encourage them in their work. Both of them just hugged and hugged and hugged me. Again, I thought to myself as we left, Certainly Project C.U.R.E. is all about saving thousands and thousands of lives around the world. But it is also about relationships with people around the world to bring help and encouragement to their little corners of the world. Once more I thought of the words of Dr. Vilmar Thrombeta in Brazil: “Mr. Jackson, you have brought millions of dollars’ worth of supplies and medical equipment to our hospital and university here in Campinas, Brazil. But the most important thing you have brought to us is hope!”

On this July 1, 1997, in mosquito-infested and drug-and-guerrilla-warfare infested Colombia, South America, Project C.U.R.E. has once again delivered hope—hope to a bishop, hope to his priests, hope to an entire hospital staff and administration—which could change lives forever. We have also successfully arranged for millions of dollars of donated medical goods to be delivered to Colombia, Belize, and many other Central and South American countries thanks to our United States Air Force and the skills and goodness of the crews of those huge C-130 and C-140 cargo airplanes.

I went to bed tonight the happiest man in the world.

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A Kitchen of Chickens, Goats, and Cookies

(Bogota, Montería, Colombia: June, 1997:) Our first stop was way out in the mountain jungles in a township called Guateque. From Guateque we traveled the muddy, washed-out roads to El Oscuro township. Because of the nearly daily downpours of rain, the roads were impassable except via donkeys, horses, and four-by-four rigs. The soil was a red clay that was very sticky and slick when mixed with water, and there was no gravel or decomposed granite base under any of the roadways. So where large amounts of water were running across the dirt roads, there was likely not to be any bottom to them.

In El Oscuro we assessed a very rural clinic. Across the roadway was the farm of one of the leading villagers. The dirt-floored, thatched-roofed house had no doors or windows but had plenty of chickens, ducks, turkeys, and pigs running through the house. The walls of the house were papered with pages out of old magazines in an apparent effort to keep the dust from blowing through them during the dry summer months. Large sheaves of rice hung from the rafters to dry. Before we left the primitive farmhouse we were served—and were expected to eat—some fresh coconut pudding and coffee, which I was dead certain were both made with bad water.

San Isidro was our next stop on our mountain tour. Rebecca Lupes is the township health-care provider and midwife. She is not a doctor or a nurse but does run the local clinic, except when the traveling government doctor comes around on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The clinic serves well over three thousand people and is very busy. Project C.U.R.E. can really help out just by sending a dental chair and a dental X‑ray machine. If those were in place, Rebecca felt she could get a dentist to periodically come to the township to help.
 
Other than the terribly obvious things needed in San Isidro, Rebecca requested first-aid kits for the other villages in the township, weight scales for children and adults, and a battery-operated megaphone of some sort to announce to the villages when the doctor was to arrive. There are no medical supplies, no oxygen facilities, no intravenous supplies or equipment, no medicine, and no sutures. They desperately need medicine to treat parasites, lice, ringworm, skin diseases, respiratory problems, and diarrhea. Other than having nothing, they are in great shape.

Our delegation stayed in San Isidro, and Father Bernie performed Mass for the township. The little chapel was packed out, and Justin and I had to sit right up front facing the congregation after being introduced as Project C.U.R.E. people. Rebecca, her mother, and her entire extended family prepared food for us to eat before we left to drive back to Montería. I took a picture of Rebecca in her kitchen preparing rice, yucca, soup, and a garden salad for us. Again, the homes had no doors, windows, or walls … mostly just thatched roofs and privacy walls around some of the bedrooms. The outside wall of Rebecca’s kitchen was a low fence. On the other side of the fence was a muddy pen where pigs, chickens, and goats were all sloshing around. The water used in the kitchen was caught from the roof in a moss covered concrete container. We all sat down and ate the food and drank the coffee. I prayed a lot!

On our way back to the city, we made one more rural stop. A young couple with a house full of kids was doing a grand job of running a farm of banana trees, passion-fruit trees, maize, guava, and other crops. We went into the kitchen, where the young mother was making cookies. I watched with amazement. She was rolling out the dough with an old, slender bottle.

There was a fire on the dirt floor right in the kitchen area. She had a big black kettle sitting on the floor, with three logs burning, one on each of three sides. On the floor next to the logs was a piece of sheet metal with another fire going on it. She would cut out the round cookies, place them side by side inside the kettle bottom, and then pick up the piece of sheet metal with rags and leaves, being careful not to get burned by the fire burning on the sheet metal, and place the sheet metal, fire and all, on top of the big black kettle.

I stood in awe and disbelief as in a few minutes she removed the sheet metal and took the cookies out of her makeshift oven. The smoke was hanging heavily in the kitchen from the unvented wood fire in the middle of the floor, but the smoke never bothered the hens that were lying on their nests along the inside kitchen wall, and the smoke certainly never interfered with my sampling some of the best-tasting cookies I have ever eaten. That was well worth the whole day in the mountains of Colombia, South America.
 
From Canalete we traveled north to the coastal town of Los Córdobas, and then north and east following the Caribbean coastline to Puerto Escondido. There are great numbers of refugees taking flight from the neighboring state of Antioquia. That state includes Medellín, the center of the drug-cartel trading business. There is so much violence and abuse of power in that part of the country that families actually leave their farms and flee to towns across state lines for safety and protection of their families and possessions. The drug-cartel thugs simply come to the rural farms and demand chickens or anything else they desire. If a farm family resists they are shot. If they supply the drug cartels, then the government troops come and demand what they would like. If the farmer resists, the troops tell the farmer they know he just gave chickens to the drug lords. That is considered aiding and abetting the enemy, so the troops shoot the farmer and take what they desire anyway.

Not being able to live in a situation like that, the fearful farmers simply abandon their land and buildings and become refugees in their own country—but in a different state.
 
At all the medical clinics in Colombia, we saw signs that said CAMU, which stands for “Centro de Aténcion Médica de Urgencias” or “Center for Urgent Medical Attention.” We found such a sign at the Puerto Escondido clinic. The clinic serves a population of fifteen thousand and has only one full‑time doctor and one and a half nurses. (I hung around to see what the half nurse looked like, but she never showed up.)

There are ten smaller “clinics” out in the remote rural areas, but most of those never see a real doctor inside their clinic walls.

Puerto Escondido needed an X‑ray machine, all kinds of simple medical supplies, blood-pressure cuffs, thermometers, a birthing table, and lab-analysis equipment. The nurse asked me if I could please find some electric fans to help cool off the one-hundred-plus-degree temperature in the small labor-and-delivery rooms to help mothers in the delivery process.

The kind people at Puerto Escondido offered to prepare us lunch, even though it was about 1:30 in the afternoon. We certainly accepted. While they were busy fixing lunch, we walked down the cement steps to the undeveloped beach area on the shores of the beautiful Caribbean Sea. After lunch we piled back into our Daihatsu four-by-four and headed out again across the magnificently beautiful countryside of Colombia.
 
On our way from Puerto Escondido to Los Córdobas, the nuns began singing. Soon everyone was trying to sing along as we rode through the countryside. The nuns, Sister Corina and Sister Maria Teresa, were an absolute hoot. At estimated ages of sixty and sixty-five, respectively, they reminded me of a couple of teenage girls on a bus heading to summer camp. They laughed and joked and sang, and I thoroughly enjoyed trying to join in even though I couldn’t understand 95 percent of what was going on.

The clinic at Los Córdobas was the last clinic we visited today. It was getting late in the afternoon, and Father Bernie was making the Daihatsu go just as fast as possible up the hills and across the rough roads in order to keep an appointment he had set for us at 6:00 p.m.

We all were dirty as pigs and windblown from our long day’s journey, but there was no time to go back to the parish house to freshen up. So we drove directly to our appointment with Bishop Molina, the head bishop of the Diocese of Montería.

Next Week: Mission Accomplished in Colombia

Jumbo Jets to Colombia

(Bogota, Montería, Colombia: June, 1997:) Project C.U.R.E. is experiencing growing pains. It is so exciting to try to obediently walk through all the opening doors as quickly as they open. Just a few brief years ago, entrance into most of the countries into which I am now traveling would have been very difficult. However, I have always subscribed to the notion that there is no such thing as a closed country if one is willing to go in and not necessarily come back out. And yet the process of going into these countries and coming back out again safely has been miraculously smooth. I have envisioned the hand of God moving in situations, providentially opening the appropriate doors and dramatically shutting the doors through which I should not pass.

Almost every day I feel the pressure of increasing our efficiency in gathering the lifesaving medical materials. I also know that I must discover new supply sources. It really has become a delicate balancing act of keeping three major areas of the Project C.U.R.E. operation moving ahead at the same time. Whenever I go to a performance of the Moscow Circus in Russia, I readily identify with the crafty fellow trying to keep all the dinner plates successfully spinning on top of the spindly poles. In Project C.U.R.E.’s case, I, of necessity, have to spend about one-third of my time performing Needs Assessment Studies outside the US, one-third of my time trying to secure donations of medical supplies and equipment, and the other third of my time raising money to cover all the costs involved in the operation. The problem seems to come when another third of my time is needed for shipping and details of logistics … and another third of my time is needed for recruiting and developing necessary volunteers around the country … and another third of my time is needed to cultivate partnerships with other missions groups involved … and another third of my time is needed to establish strategic political contacts in New York and Washington, D.C. … and a full half of my time is needed for me to be a good, well‑read Christian, husband, dad, grandfather, and friend.

In order to keep it all in focus and ranked according to priority, I have simply confessed to God that I need to give back to him all the tasks, all the time slots, all the expectations, and all the results and depend totally upon him to give sufficient wisdom to adequately fulfill all those things possible in his view, and then ask him to send to Project C.U.R.E. the dedicated people necessary to help accomplish the rest.

I have to continuously recall the night I was lying in bed in a cold sweat, staring at the ceiling, fretting about all the places I had visited and promised to send medical goods. “What if I cannot gather enough goods to send to all the places I’ve committed to?” I wondered. Then in the panic of the night hour, God’s assurance came into the bedroom along with his announcement, “I will always give you just a little bit more than you can ever give away.” I rejoiced and took courage in the darkness of that night … and I do so now on almost a daily basis.

The involvement of Project C.U.R.E. in Montería, Colombia, has a very interesting twist. Following Project C.U.R.E.’s trip to Old Saigon, Vietnam, Colonel Benjamin Pieczynski from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs and I were introduced, and we began planning a strategy for using US Air Force C-130 cargo-transport planes, based in Colorado Springs, to take our humanitarian medical supplies to our targeted areas. After much negotiation and red tape, it was ultimately concluded that the colonel would fly our goods free of charge into any areas of accessibility, as long as he and his crews could fly out of Colorado Springs, deliver the cargo at the designated location, and fly back to Colorado Springs all in one weekend. So we drew a little circle on a map designating the circumference of the area to be serviced within the weekend time frame. It basically included the area in the Caribbean and the northern tier of countries of South America.

At one of our meetings with the colonel and his staff in Colorado Springs, I was introduced to Andrew Pisini, a mission director for the Catholic archdiocese in Denver. Almost as a favor to the colonel, I was asked if Project C.U.R.E. could include one of Mr. Pisini’s missions projects in Columbia, South America, in our plans. I told the colonel I would be more than happy to work closely with Andrew, especially since the colonel would be flying our medical supplies to South America via US Air Force C-130 cargo planes. That willingness on our part seemed to cinch the deal between the colonel and me. Thus began the relationship between the archdiocese and Project C.U.R.E.

Another interesting factor went into the mix for the Colombia trip. Earlier I had agreed to take with me on my Jamaica trip in June a young man by the name of Justin Mouttet. Justin will be a senior at Colorado Christian University this fall and has been elected student body president for the coming year. He had heard me speak at a CCU chapel once and determined to not only get involved with Project C.U.R.E. himself but to also help get CCU students and staff involved. Justin was aware that I had taken David Sattler from the CCU administration with me to China and was very anxious to be a part of a Project C.U.R.E. trip. I decided to take Justin Mouttet with me on the Colombia trip. I also invited Khanh (pronounced “Con”) Hoang, a young Vietnamese Catholic priest to travel with us.

Saturday, June 28

The flight to Bogota was, as my friends in jolly old England would say, “delightfully lovely.” Colombia is so very green and lush, and Bogota lies nestled up against the high, tree-covered mountains. Especially from the air on our approach to the landing strip, Colombia looked like a beautiful green emerald with sculptured city and rural scenes on each sparkling facet of the gem.

We traveled from Bogota to Monteria where we met Father Bernie, who has now been in Montería for about six years. It didn’t take long for all of us to get acquainted and begin working together very smoothly. I really did not sleep well last night. I was sleeping under a flimsy, yellow mosquito net that Justin helped me rig up with ropes and clothespins. The beds they had set up for us were canvas stretchers that kept collapsing. Justin and I stayed in the same small room, which had no provision for hanging up any of our clothes and hardly any room at all to unfold a suitcase.

Mosquitoes and bugs were everywhere. Father Bernie gave us an atomizer hand pump filled with some kind of terrible-smelling spray and showed us how to hand-pump the mechanism to fog the bedroom with mist in an attempt to clear out the mosquitoes. We had to stay out of the room for at least ten minutes so the spray would not harm our lungs.

The parish water well had been condemned earlier, and they had tried to hook on to the terribly unsatisfactory town water system. Sometimes there was water; sometimes there wasn’t. Father Bernie informed us that if we decided to shower, we shouldn’t let any of the water into our mouths, and he also requested that we use only a very small amount of water to rinse ourselves off.

Morning finally came, and I climbed out of my mosquito net and off my canvas stretcher and got my feet on the floor. I must admit, the places we visited all day today made me feel ashamed for feeling disadvantaged by my parish amenities. Things sort of went primitive from there. Father Bernie, Andrew, Justin, and I left the parish house in our little white Daihatsu “jeep” and stopped by a convent to pick up Sister Corina and Sister Maria Teresa.

Next Week: A Kitchen of Chickens, Goats, and Cookies

SEASON TO BE GRATEFUL

Miracle to share: 

On October 26, 2016, a delegation of Project C.U.R.E. staff and board members traveled to Pennsylvania for the inauguration and ribbon cutting ceremonies of Project C.U.R.E.’s new Mid-Atlantic Distribution Center, located in West Grove, Pennsylvania. The warehouse and office complex consists of about 60,000 square feet of space and will serve the critical needs of Project C.U.R.E.’s expansion into the east coast resource market.

The facility, which has access to strategic international shipping ports, will begin serving manufacturers and wholesale venders of medical goods, and will immediately begin working with over 60 regional hospitals in the Philadelphia area.

Project C.U.R.E. has become the world’s largest handler of donated medical goods into over 130 developing countries. It now has large distribution facilities in the metropolitan areas of Denver, Colorado, Phoenix, Arizona, Nashville, Tennessee, Houston, Texas, Chicago, Illinois, and now Philadelphia. It additionally has collection warehouses in nine other cities across the U.S.

A generous grant from AmerisourceBergan, one of the largest global pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturers headquartered in the Philly area, allowed Project C.U.R.E. to acquire needed transportation and collection equipment for the new Philadelphia operation. Other medical and charitable organizations are stepping up to help Project C.U.R.E.’s new Mid-Atlantic endeavor.

When we started Project C.U.R.E. in 1987, I never knew that it would grow anywhere outside the borders of the country of Brazil. But God had other ideas. We start our 30th year of collecting and distributing medical supplies and pieces of medical equipment in January, 2017. It has been an awesome adventure and fortunately, each one involved is convinced that it has been the divine wisdom and engineering of God that has brought it all to pass. None of us is smart enough, strong enough, or gifted enough to take credit for that which has been accomplished.

With a dedicated force of over 25,000 volunteers in just the U.S. Project C.U.R.E. stands on tip- toe with eager anticipation as we look to a future of delivering health and hope to the desperately needy people around the world. Forbes magazine ranks Project C.U.R.E. as one of the 20 Most Efficient Large U.S. Charities and we are the recipient of the GuideStar Exchange Platinum Seal and the Charity Navigator Four-Star Rating.

Now is the season to be grateful. Now is the time to thank God for his miracles. Now is the occasion to reaffirm our vision and rededicate our efforts to help other people become Better Off. We are all a part of the great new miracle of Project C.U.R.E.’s Mid-Atlantic Distribution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am so grateful.

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