MAYBOLE BAPTIST CHURCH South Ayrshire

Rev Richard A Martin Minister

The Baptist Manse

68 Culzean Road MAYBOLE KA19 8AH

Telephone 01655 88 22 05 e-mail RMa7734041@aol.com

Dear Editor,

THANK YOU FROM BELARUS & MAYBOLE BAPTIST CHURCH

You kindly published our requests for help, and photos of our Belarussian children's visit. May we use your columns to say 'thank you' for all your readers did to make a group of needy children very happy.

We received gifts of money from each Maybole church and others, from organisations, businesses and many individuals in Maybole and from further afield. Contributions from elderly people were so notably generous. Our local transport was provided by the Carrick Community Transport Group. We want to say a big thank you to all who helped.

In addition to gifts in kind, we received £3,675. £2,282 was spent directly on the children, and £1,000 towards the cost of aircraft hire, landing charges, fuel and insurance, to bring them here and take them home. The balance goes to Servants Aloft (Ayr), for their humanitarian aid to Belarus.

Most of the money was spent on food, clothes, and the many outings which the children enjoyed They arrived with one small sports bag (or less) each, with a change of clothes and the shoes on their feet (often flip-flops). Each of them returned with three big bags or more!

At home much of what they had received would be shared amongst their family, including cousins and friends. Many children also used the spending money, you gave for them, on clothes and gifts for the family .

The each took home a photo-album of pictures of their visit, and we plan to send them other memorabilia including a video in the near future. Local friends might like to know that we hope to have an evening to view slides and a video of the visit.

Once again, please accept a very big THANK YOU from the children and from those of us who shared the fun with them.

Rev Richard Martin & Bob McPike CO-ORDINATORS Belarus Children's Visit Maybole Baptist Church