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In January Helping Hands was contacted by some really nice folks in Greensboro about some furniture they wanted to donate. One of my helpers and I drove up to see what they had and the condition. They had two fifty foot trailers full of furniture that they used to fill rooms for lease. One trailer was full of Maple and the other full of Oak furniture. They needed to get rid of it and empty the trailers. The trailers were used for storage by this company but were not road worthy. Two other ministries besides Helping Hands had been contacted but the lady in charge really wanted Helping Hands to receive the bulk of the items. I thought this would be perfect to fill some of the requests from the Robbins area plus some of the requests that we had locally but the bulk could be sent to Israel. I contacted my contact at Jezreel International in New York that we have worked with in the past. I took some pictures of the contents of the storage trailers and forwarded the pictures to him. He agreed that it was really nice stuff and ask if it was new, since Israel will only accept new furniture. I told him it had never been used and that it was considered out of date and new furniture had already been ordered. Arrangements were made for a truck to be sent down to Greensboro and the company that donated agreed to load the truck once it arrived.

As you can see from the pictures, it’s very nice furniture. It took about a half a day to make the whole thing happen and we watched as the truck pulled away.

This morning I talked to my contact in New York and was assured he was very happy with the furniture he had received. He also informed me that the entire load was sent to Israel.

This picture is the Joseph Storehouse in Jerusalem, Israel. All shipments from this organization, called Jezreel International based in Albany, NY goes to the Joseph Storehouse in Israel. Once it is received and inventoried part of the shipment is then redistributed to about 30 smaller warehouses located all around Israel. Jezreel ships to countries all over the world, sometimes as many as 10 containers a month. Each country has a list of items they will allow to be shipped into their country and some items they will not receive. For instance, Romania and Israel will not allow used shoes. China will not allow any medical items unless they are new, not even walkers, potty chairs, or canes. Almost no one will accept out of date medicine or supplies. They figure if it’s not good for America, it’s not good for them. Some countries will not allow used clothing unless the shipment is fumigated, that’s sort of difficult here. The type of electricity also comes in to play if you are sending electrical items. Not only do you have to consider will it plug in, where do you get adapters, but also what is the cycles. If the cycles in that don’t match the item shipped, it will burn up pretty quick. Can you imagine sending an ultra sound machine that cost 3 to 5 thousand dollars to someplace in Africa and it lasting less than a month because the cycles were 50 instead of 60?

So you see, it’s not as simple as just loading a container and sending. You also have to send good useable items since even a cheap 40 foot container may cost $4500.00 to ship. I’ve heard stories of good meaning people sending containers and paying the extra money to buy the container ($2000.00). They were thinking the recipient could use the container for storage, the question is, how does one get a 20,000 pound container off the back of a truck once it’s empty? Normally one would use a crane which is not readily available in most countries.

I just wanted you to know what is involved in making a shipment happen.

Helping Hands still has a shipment for Honduras in our warehouse. We are waiting on the paperwork to clear and hoping that will happen soon. This shipment is very large consisting of 24 skids, which is one 53 foot trailer load. It will be moved to Bragg Army Airfield and flown to Honduras on the first available flight. Please be in prayer for this shipment to move quickly.

Tony and Donna Haywood

April 2015 Newsletter

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Helping Hands Ministry, Inc. - Reaching Out to Touch the World