School Supplies for Rosslyn Academy

A little history before the story--A long time ago, back in the late 1990's (lol) I went to Kenya for a 4 month mission trip. During that time, my Aunt and Uncle and their family also lived in Kenya where they worked at Rosslyn Academy in Nairobi. While I was there, I visited them in their home and walked around the school campus. After returning to that States, Dan continues to work for Rosslyn Academy.  One large aspect of his job is ordering school supplies for Rosslyn Academy.

Fast forward 20 years...Dan invited Jeremy and I to go to New Orleans with him and Laurie to inventory the shipment of school supplies going to Rosslyn Academy for the '19-'20 school year. Once teachers in Kenya submit their materials list to the administration and it is approved, Dan orders all of the supplies and has them shipped to Missionary Expediters on Tchoupitoulas St. in New Orleans. I included the name of the street because--how would you like to type or spell Tchoupitoulas hundreds of times!? (We won't talk about Jeremy's attempts to pronounce--or mispronounce it!)

This is the Missionary Expediters warehouse.

Dan orders $150K-$200K of school supplies every year. This is his 17th or 18th year and once or twice a year he comes to this warehouse--usually with some helpful reinforcements--to make sure all of the things he ordered have arrived and are accounted for.

When a delivery is made, the warehouse stacks it on a pallet for the Rosslyn Academy account. Our first job was to sort the boxes by category. Books were separated out as they are not taxed at customs in Kenya. We also had piles for Science, Art, PE, classroom supplies, IT, and PTF.

Dan has this process perfected. Each of us had a paper with every order number and the category it belonged in. The order number was part of the shipping address on every box. So we grabbed a box, matched the order numbers and put it in the correct category pile.

Next, every category was lined up in numerical order by shipping number. Some orders might only be one box, others had multiple boxes. Once the line up was made, each order was verified against the master list (ensuring that all orders arrived), each individual box received a sticker with a piece number and the piece numbers were recorded beside the order numbers on the master list. If there was a discrepancy, Dan would look up the order in his 2 inch binder of invoices, open the box and figure out where it belonged. Very few boxes had to be opened!  This process ensured that 1. all the orders and boxes arrived in New Orleans  2. aides in the customs process 3. lets Rosslyn know if any boxes are missing upon arrival 4. if a teacher doesn't receive what they ordered Dan can tell them exactly what box it should have arrived in. 

The picture below is the line up of boxes for the IT department. Jeremy thought it would be pretty fun to be on the receiving end of this shipment.

As the boxes were labeled with piece stickers, they were stacked on pallets by category. The warehouse worker, who has lived in New Orleans all his life and has the best accent, took the pallet to the machine that wraps everything in plastic shrink wrap.

A wrapped and finished pallet.

At the end of our day and a half of work, I counted 22 pallets and we had labeled 548 boxes!

The liaison at Missionary Expediters who handles the Rosslyn account, told us that it takes in the neighborhood of 50 permissions and permits just to the crate out of the port in New Orleans. The expected ship date was Jan 16. Once it leaves the port in New Orleans, the cargo ship will make a stop somewhere (that I can't remember!) and then will be loaded on another ship to Mombasa, Kenya. It is expected to arrive in Kenya in April. Once in Kenya, the shipment will have to be cleared by customs which is quite a process with an unclear timeline. Rosslyn will have to pay 15% in taxes. And then the crate will be transported to Nairobi, which I think someone said happens by rail. 

I loved learning new things about international shipping. I enjoyed the process and completing a job. It was also pretty neat for me to have a concept of where the boxes were going. It added significance to the work we did.