Our recent Sunday School Outreach (April 18th through May 23rd 2004) was for the people as well as the troops stationed in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. Although this may not seem to have a local flavor, please read on. As a result of our first church-wide Destination! Series Outreach effort, All Saints has an on-going humanitarian aid relationship with the 412th CA Battalion stationed in Eastern Afghanistan - you might say we’ve taken them into the family here (see Checkpoint: Afghanistan)! The troops are heavily involved with reconstruction efforts there and depend on a regular supply of aid supplies (clothing, blankets, school supplies and more) from different churches here in the United States. The list of items we are collecting on a weekly basis is as follows:

Clothing (new or gently worn -- all kinds, all sizes)
Shoes (new or gently worn -- all sizes, closed toe/back)
Books (new or gently used paperbacks, magazines, etc.)
DVDs (new or used)

Participants are asked to bring their items to the Education Hour with them where they are collected. For the past few weeks, we have enjoyed some fun class competition in the Sunday School to see which class can bring in the most items for our collection - the class who collects the most items wins a doughnut breakfast for the following Sunday! The winners have included just about every class so far, and the participants have truly enjoyed the healthy contest!