This year I was really touched by the interest that the big corporates took in our project. And not only did they support this with gifts but some of their people committed days of work as well. How humbling that support is. And how grateful I was for it. They worked so hard and achieved in a few short days what usually takes my older band of volunteers a little bit longer. In this case people from one of the largest banks int he country not only donated gifts but their time and labour as well. The CEO of Macquarie is known for his philanthropy - it clearly rubs off on the organisation and we all appreciated the way the folk from Macquarie threw themselves into the task of turning the donated goods into presents.

When all the gifts are sorted into age groups and whether it is suitable for a boy or girl, they are bundled up into a present and wrapped. And each child has that gift labelled by name - the orphanage sends us a list of names. Any goods that are left over are packaged up and sent anyway - these orphanages waste nothing.

My dear friend Winsome has done an amazing job over many months with her sewing machine. She has turned out more than 400 cloth bags, used by the children for carrying books and, well just about anything they turn their minds to actually. And she stitched up more than 150 cloth bags used as pencil cases. Amazing really. Often while watching television. How she does both at the same time I will never know. And when things got crazy while all of the final planning was coming together, there she was offering a meal or helping with the packing. Or… well, anything really. Some of the reward of doing all this lies in the great community of friends and contacts who join in and support the effort this way. She did not want to show these off by the way but we all wanted to recognise the sterling work she has done in the background.

A week of dawn ’til dusk labour  by all sorts of people see this project come together in the last week before the freight company collects the cartons. It is school holidays here so a few parents who came along to help brought their children with them. Some had sorting and packaging tasks which soon get pretty boring. Others “lucked in” and got the job of sorting sweets and candies to go to the orphans. “One in my mouth, one in the bag, one in my mouth, one in the bag.!” These brothers did a great job - thanks guys.

This year we are sending more packages to the orphanages in Sri Lanka. And this time around we received a remarkable amount of gifts and support from all sorts of folk, including large companies and institutions. At the other end of the scale individuals have been working all year on sewing and creating gifts. A tremendous effort. And over the last week we have had an incredible number of folk focused on sorting the goods, creating gift packs and packaging it all up ready for the freight company. That is a story of generosity in its own right - and one which we will include in a few more posts.

In the meantime here are a couple of photos which show the hall at Frenchs Forest Baptist Church full of goods - spread out like this it is a bit hard to believe most of this was packed in my garage, lounge and dining room!

In 2004 a friend sent me some items together with an old, working transistor radio.  I included this with the gifts going to the poor in Galle, Sri Lanka. The nun in charge always comes up with something creative when she gets one-off items, as it is often difficult to distinguish one poor family from another.

To solve the problem she often organizes a small tea party for families when the gifts are distributed.  On this occasion she handed out free “lucky numbers” from a ticket book.  Even purchasing a ticket is beyond the reach of these people.  They drew numbers out of a hat for various items and the transistor radio was won by an extremely poor family, the father being a roadside cobbler repairing shoes, umbrellas and handbags.  They were overwhelmed. Never in their lifetime would they ever be able to obtain such an item!  The man and his family not only shed many tears of joy but fell down on the floor and stretched out to the nun, a Sri Lankan custom amongst the Buddhists and Hindus in particular where it is customary to honour your parents and elders.  All this happened on the 22 December 2004.

On December 26^th the tsunami hammered Galle and most of the children and families who had received gifts not only lost them but many lost family and their little shacks as well.  The Cobbler and his family had now become refugees and had told the nun in their distress that they had lost the precious radio. As things turned out, following the tsunami I started collecting clothing and items to ship to Sri Lanka to help those who were hit by the tsunami.  Whilst packing these gifts I mentioned to a couple of friends standing around me the story about the Cobbler family who had lost their most precious transistor radio. One of them piped up “I bought 2 wind up little transistor radios several months back just on a hunch as I saw them at a bargain shop.”  My friend had no idea why she bought them – as she was not aware of any need.  She was more than willing to donate one of these 2 radios to the Cobbler!  I was overjoyed by this news and a year later when I visited Sri Lanka and happened to be present at a Christmas party at the orphanage when the Cobbler’s wife turned up with their “wind up” transistor radio with the cardboard box still intact. She was extremely grateful for the replacement radio.  It was such a simple thing but it meant so much to them.

Bobby at Bestest Blog of All Time did some neat work earlier in the year getting another blog of mine “off the ground” and exposed to a remarkably wide readership. Apparently more people are resorting to getting their information from blogs than traditional websites these days - which is one way of saying there are an enormous number of blogs out there and personal or focused blogs can get lost in the noise - especially if you are not contributing to the global Paris Hilton titillation or some such mindless nonsense. Bobby has gone out and set up a new tool called Fechr.com (pronounced “feature”), a more refined blog promotional tool. If it is anything as good as his previous effort it is worth connecting up with him - which is what I am doing here. Part of my effort to get Network Heaven and its charitable work exposed as much as we can. Once you have had a look around here, left a comment of encouragement (and maybe offered some support), please head over to Fechr.com. It will be worth the effort.

I have been fortunate enough to be able to visit some of the places where we have donated goods. Its a useful way to be able to give feedback to the donors. And one way I can understand how best to direct our resources. On one of these visits we stopped at a roadside stall and bought some fruit and vegetables. The owner, something of a character, asked where we were going once we had made our purchases. When he found out we were off to visit an orphanage this gentleman refused to let us go without pressing on us more fruit and vegetables for the kids. He had very little for himself but was quick to give us from his own store to help the kids. It was a very humbling experience.

I will work out how this should be slotted into the side bar once I get my head around Wordpress a bit more. But in the meantime we have started getting some advertising about Network Heaven out on to the internet. If you have a blog or website that you are happy to link up Advertising Heaven please go ahead. We of course will be happy to reciprocate.
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