Vitamins to Siberia

I'm so happy, I wanted to share with you...

A few months back, through an online CF group, I found out about a boy in Siberia with CF who does not have access to vitamins. People with CF have trouble absorbing fat soluable vitamins, mainly A,D,E & K. So, some companies make specific vitamins for CF people. I give my kids vitamins, but I use natural ones (as opposed to the synthetic ones). But, in every enzyme shipment, I receive one bottle of vitamins for free. I've hung onto them in case we ever needed them, but have not yet used them. So, when I found out about this boy, I decided to ship mine to him. It wasn't as simple as shipping them in the US. There are many restrictions on what and how you ship to other countries. And, it can be tricky getting certain items through their customs because it may 1) go against a law or 2) be valuable enough that the customs agent decides to swipe it!

But, this boy needs these vitamins and I wanted to give it a shot. It is a Christian family and I believe, from what little I do know of them, that his dad is a pastor there. I packed up the box and headed to the post office. I filled in the customs declaration sheet and marked it as a gift, as instructed. But, there is a box that requires detailed information of the items in the box. UGH! What do I do? I went ahead and wrote "vitamins". I didn't want to lie, but I didn't want to raise any flags. I also didn't want to write one thing and end up having customs open it and find it as something else and confiscate it. I have no idea what goes on and so I just wrote what it was. And then prayed. I knew that if God wanted these to make it to this boy, He would make it happen.

I just received word today that the vitamins made it to them safely! YEAH!!!! Praise the Lord!!! The exciting thing, to me, is that I will get to meet this family some day. Probably not this side of heaven, but that's okay. This may seem like a minor thing to some of you. Maybe you ship overseas all the time. But, for me...to be able to specifically help a boy with CF, in this way, just makes my heart rejoice!

Now I'm working on a package of goodies for a family in Indonesia who are just starting there as missionaries. Pulling off labels and taking things out of their containers. I feel like a smuggler! I'm hoping the baggie of oregano doesn't cause problems. Hmmm.....