AHMEN Container Committee, Team Leaders, BOD, Ellis Wade, and others,

I want to commend everyone who was involved in the container loading this past Saturday. It was very smooth and much less stressful than any previous one that I have participated in. We still have some kinks that need to be worked out. Too many items still come in at the last minute that are neither labeled nor manifested. In one incidence, a lot of stuff came in half way through the loading that was unboxed and the donator had no idea as to where it should be sent.  But we are getting better. The use of pallets and the rollers to speed up loading was a great idea. Thanks again to everyone who helped.

Now we are faced with the tremendous challenge of finding and moving into a new warehouse. We have been so very fortunate to have had the use of the Arley warehouse and we will be forever grateful to Ellis Wade and Houston Wood Products. Everyone needs to be on the lookout for a new warehouse for us. We’ll need a minimum of 4,000 square feet of space. We need to be vacated from the Arley warehouse no later than by the end of February. I walked through the warehouse with Ellis asking “what’s this and who does it belong to?” and discovered that we are responsible for removing a tremendous amount of stuff from the warehouse. I suspect that a good amount of this stuff is not serviceable and will need to be discarded.

For those of you who are unaware, Benny Rowe is heading up an effort to acquire an additional container for this winter to ship as much of the usable material that is backlogged in the Arley warehouse to Honduras rather than move it and re-store it in some new warehouse. Sending an extra container may cause a crunch on the Honduran end. Their space is limited and must be cleared out before the spring container goes down. We can’t simply shift the location of stuff that does not have an immediate use or home. Anything placed on the winter container must have some destination other than the warehouse and must be accompanied with funds to distribute that material to its destination. This is going to require more money than is normal and a whole lot more planning than we have ever done.  

I would suggest that as soon as feasible, the container committee call for a two or three day full scale assault on the Arley warehouse. Every item needs to be dragged out, identified and a decision as to its disposition made. We could sort items as to urgency and then palette and manifest items for the winter container. Everything else needs to be either reallocated or prepared for shipment to the new warehouse. The sooner that this is done, the better, as it would direct what goes on the container and what must be either junked or moved elsewhere. There will have to be some tough decisions made for this to work. Just for example consider Mary’s dilemma regarding her optometry chair and lamp stand. Two years ago there was the expectation of building a new clinic in Honduras so Mary begged for, and received a used hydraulic examining chair with matching slit lamp stand in excellent condition for a full optometry lane. We struggled to load it on our farm trailer, hauled it to Arley, and off loaded it into the warehouse where it still waits. It’s worth too much to throw away, is too heavy to move around, but really doesn’t have a pressing need in Honduras since the new clinic idea was canned.

One cautionary note: Regardless of what the committee decides regarding clearing the warehouse, I hope we can refrain from bringing anything new into the Arley warehouse. I am afraid that as soon as we get another container, everyone will want to bring in “just a couple of” extra items to be shipped. Tom Camp and Mary Guffey are the worst potential offenders and must be watched closely. Well these are just some rambling thoughts.

If you can contribute some money to this effort, please contact Benny Rowe at bennyrowe@bellsouth.net . If you can help with labor clearing the warehouse contact Ivan Greene at greenei@bellsouth.net.

Amor en Cristo,

guf