History
FROM INDIANA—Children of Abraham had its origins in 2001 in Hammond Indiana, where Champ Merrick and a group people from the United Methodist Church of Northwest Indiana approached members of the Northwest Indiana Islamic Center to send relief together to victims of the Iraq War. Imam Mongy El-Quesny of the mosque immediately took interest and a partnership was formed. As several people in the communities had access to medical supplies, they decided to raise some funds and make a small shipment to Iraq. Initially, they used the church as a sorting facility, holding interfaith sorting days to organize and package the donated material.
What began as a trickle of a few boxes of supplies soon turned into an influx that came by the truckloads. The organization was registered with the state of Indiana and a 9,000 sq. ft. vacant warehousing facility was donated for temporary use. Funds were raised and instead of making a small shipment to Iraq, Children of Abraham shipped a 40’ shipboard container of medical supplies with a replacement value close to $1 million.
After Iraq, the project continued and the rest, as they say, is history. Since that container, Children of Abraham has reached a productivity rate of shipping around eleven containers per year, or about a container every four weeks! Millions of dollars of medical supplies and equipment have been successfully delivered to:
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
Bolivia
Dominican Republic
East Jerusalem
Ghana
India
Kenya
Lebanon
Liberia
Malawi
Morocco
Mozambique
Nigeria
Pakistan
Peru
Sierra Leone
Tanzania
Zimbabwe
…TO MICHIGAN—While a senior in high school, Moustafa Moustafa was introduced to the organization on a weekend trip to Indiana and was inspired to see different faiths partner in such a worthwhile effort. After a service trip to New Orleans with Champ and Imam Mongy after hurricane Katrina, Moustafa knew he wanted to spread the work that was being done in Indiana. After the tragic Kashmir Earthquake that devastated Northern Pakistan in 2005, he organized an interfaith region-wide blanket drive that collected over 1,000 blankets in just four weeks, which were shipped on a Children of Abraham container to Pakistan. The success of the drive was due largely to a fruitful collaboration between the Islamic Mosque and Religious Institute of Grand Rapids and St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, who collectively helped to publicize it on radio and in several press publications.
However, it wasn’t until Moustafa began studying at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor that a large scale Michigan chapter of Children of Abraham was established. The University of Michigan campus provided the perfect venue for the creation of such an organization with its diversity, abundance of religious and humanitarian groups, and support. Moustafa forged a partnership between students from the Muslim Student’s Association, St. Mary’s Student Parish, and the campus Hillel and began work on acquiring medical supplies.
While waiting for supplies to come in, the students organized several service trips to Detroit, beginning Children of Abraham’s connection with the city. They obtained storage space for medical supplies and the first shipment came in on a 26’ UHaul truck. As more trucks came in, the Hillel was generous enough to allow the students to sort supplies in their auditorium. Several interfaith medical supply sorting “parties” were organized. Then in summer 2008, Jacob Smith, a sophomore in the organization, helped secure a temporary warehouse in which Children of Abraham logged in 4,000 volunteer hours sorting the remainder of the supplies. On July 17, 2008, Children of Abraham loaded and sent their first 40’ to Arusha, Tanzania, where it was distributed between two hospitals.
The Arusha container was hopefully the first of many to come.