Long History of Refugee Aid in Germany

As we were sorting a mountain of bags and boxes of donations for our Welcome Bags project, an American friend who has lived a long time in Germany sent me this sweet story.
I have tried to remove identification as he requested.

DDR kids

Reminds me of the years 1984 to 1989. When we were going into the DDR [ Deutsche Demokratische Republik or German Democratic Republic or East Germany] 4-5 times a year and as I would go on my business appt.s I would tell those who I visited [with] about our driving into the DDR and meeting with various ministers and contacts that welcomed [receiving] clothes item. 

So I would come home with various clothing items and [my wife] would wash or send them to the Dry Cleaners [and do] what needed to be prepared to take [them] in [to the DDR].  

Grandmothers waving to their children and grandchildren across the wall

[My wife]  wore out two washing machines during those years.

Looking with longing

The contact we worked with enabled [my wife]  to have access to records in order to set up appointments with the different churches where the records were.

Neighbors

I remember our 2 and 1/2 car garage was filled with clothes at one time so we parked the cars outside until all of the clothing items has been prepared to go in[to the DDR] to the families and church ministers that we had contact with. 

When I saw the stage full of items that needed to be sorted it brought back some memories of our smaller piles, although without the bags. 

East and West