The Lincoln Division of Orphan Grain Train needed some quick help last Thursday and Prof. Dirk Reek and his world religions class were there for them. Students MaryLou Andrews and Kyle Winter approached Reek about the opportunity help Orphan Grain Train load up a semi-trailer bound for Armenia. But there was a catch: The group only had a two-hour time slot to pull the trailer up to the warehouse and the students should have been in class. Reek decided to build on the initiative of his students and invited the entire class to help out. So, the seven students and Reek joined others from the University Lutheran Chapel in Lincoln and Orphan Grain Train to get the trailer loaded.
“We got done with three minutes to spare!” said Andrews. “I was really excited that this opportunity to help came up and equally excited that Prof. Reek was willing to have the class meet there and that the rest of the class wanted to help.”
As each pallet of boxes was forklifted on to the back of the trailer, the students would stack the boxes in the trailer as efficiently as possible. The clothing, shoes, caps, quilts and blankets had been collected, sorted and boxed by numerous LCMS congregations in southeast Nebraska with a few local thrift stores also donating some unsold items.
Orphan Grain Train is a hands-on, Christian, humanitarian aid and disaster relief organization built on a nationwide network of volunteers. Grain Train’s 18 regional divisions collect, pack and ship more than 150 semi-loads of donated clothing, relief supplies and humanitarian aid each year.