Dogs, Apricots and Reading Glasses

ALL WITHIN THE LAST MONTH

Greetings!

By now you realize we've been helping Afghanistan in a variety of ways for the past sixteen years. Education is our primary focus, but it's not the only aid we've been able to provide. A week ago I heard from a man many of you met years ago when he visited us,Pen Farthing. His passion is rescuing animals in Kabul, particularly dogs.

Dogs in Afghanistan run in packs or wander alone fending for themselves on the streets. Dogs are not considered a man's or woman's best friend as they are here. Pen's foundation, Nowzad, operates a rescue kennel In Kabul that also facilitates uniting soldiers with the dogs they've fallen in love with while serving in Afghanistan. Dogs rescued by soldiers who die while serving in Afghanistan have also been transported to the soldiers' families.

A few years ago TIE included a couple of pallets of dog and cat food donated by Purina in one of our Denton shipments. Quality animal food is very difficult to find in Afghanistan. I've offered to do the same for our next shipment. Incidentally our next packing party will be on September 28th. I already know it will be our largest to date. So, be out of town the weekend before or after, not that day, if you can.

I'm writing about Pen because compassionate people like yourself care as much about the welfare of animals as you do humans. Some perhaps more. To watch videos about Nowzad's work click HERE and to contribute click HERE.

MEANWHILE

I've already written about the twenty two thousand plus fruit trees (cuttings) provided farmers in Lalander. To learn about that undertaking click here. Below are photos that tell the story. The harvest photos were recently sent to me by Maiwand. The full grown trees you see came from cuttings that cost us $1.25 each thirteen years ago.

FINALLY

I was contacted by Joan Hancock of Restoring Vision, a nonprofit organization that provides charitable partners with high quality reading glasses that are distributed to communities throughout the world. She advised me that the price of reading glasses was going up. So I bought 2,000 at 40 cents a piece. They will be in our next shipment. We're helping children and adults learn to read. Now we'll be able to help 2,000 who find it difficult or impossible to see the words.