• • Jackson County Pilot

A fish-boil fundraiser is set for this Sunday at Immanuel Lutheran’s Activity Center in support of the Orphan Grain Train organization.

The fundraiser feed will take place from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

“The Orphan Grain Train is a network of volunteers that shares material resources with needy people in America and around the world,” said Connie Rossow, secretary of Immanuel Lutheran Church. “They share everything from clothing and food items to medical supplies and equipment and machinery. The ladies of our church make quilts each year and donate most of them to the Orphan Grain Train.”

The Orphan Grain Train organization is headquartered in Norfolk, Neb., where most of the donated items are shipped and warehoused.

“Our ladies’ quilts are shipped there too,” Rossow said. “They have a great, big warehouse in Norfolk. The Orphan Grain Train is a recognized service organization of the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod.”

In recent years, the Orphan Grain Train has helped victims of Hurricane Katrina, victims of the Mexican drug wars and Hispanics caught up in border-crossing dilemmas. The organization has also helped victims of other hurricanes in many parts of the world as well as those suffering from droughts and starvation in some of the African nations.

“The Orphan Grain Train was started basically to help others in need,” Rossow said. “It is a humanitarian effort, no matter the disaster, whether it is people that are victims of war-torn nations or those facing economic setbacks.”

Some of the projects that the Orphan Grain Train has been involved in include School Kits for Kids, special projects like Adopt an Orphan and Warm Boots for Russia.

“Immanuel first got involved with the Orphan Grain Train through our ladies’ making of the quilts,” Rossow said. “But we have also sponsored a fish boil each year to raise funds to help that organization too. The fish boil includes the white fish, vegetables, coleslaw, homemade breads and assorted desserts as well as beverages, all for a freewill offering. The whole process is done on site and involves the boiling of the vegetables and then the fish in layers. But the vegetables — things like baby onions, carrots and potatoes — are served separate on a plate along with the fish and melted butter. It is a tasty meal and is open to the community.”

The latest Orphan Grain Train project and one that benefits from this upcoming fish boil, the Sudan Project, was actually started in February 2008, but met with some delays.

“The Orphan Grain Train found that Sudan, an African nation, had need of machinery,” Rossow said. “Our local Lutheran church took this on as one of our own projects. We looked around and found equipment, collected the farm machinery, brought it to a central location where it could be repaired and made to working order.”

That equipment was broken down to fit tightly in two large shipping containers, and was packed in with heavy-duty pipe and water-purifying equipment and sent to Sudan.

“All the farm machinery was in good operating condition and ready to be reassembled when it got to its destination in Sudan,” Rossow said. “The pipe and water-purifying equipment was sent so that water could be pumped from the Nile River to the land, owned by the Lutheran Church in that country, that they are letting the Sudanese people use to grow their own food. And the soil is good for raising food in that country.”

But there was a problem.

The Lutheran Bishop of Sudan had died. He was the one who had made arrangements with the government to allow the shipment of machinery and supplies to enter that country. In the following months of turmoil, the containers that had made it to a port in Sudan were held up.

“The two containers of machinery and a container containing a complete medical clinic and supplies were held up in the harbor and the paperwork to get them into Sudan had to be completed all over again,” Rossow said. “But now, after several months of waiting, they have agreed to let the ships unload and the containers have been delivered to the site. In fact, over Thanksgiving, five of our local men, including Loren Ulbricht, a member of our church, and the Orphan Grain Train are going along with four men from Nebraska and some other men from other areas — about a dozen in all — to Sudan to set the farm equipment up and teach the Sudanese people how to use it so they can grow their own food.”

The funds raised from Sunday’s fish boil and the matching funding from Thrivent Financial will help pay for the shipping costs of that equipment, Rossow said.