Meat canning

Last week the MCC meat canner made its annual visit to the Mtn. Lake area (read more about this unique project here). I grew up helping with this each year, and so of course I want our kids to do the same.

So on the coldest, snowiest day of the year so far, we packed off to the Elmendorf Christian Community south of town. We did a wee bit of work inbetween eating some delicious faspa and visiting with friends. Jonathan and Anna made their debut stamping the labels. These go on each of the finished cans and identify not only the contents (cooked turkey chunks and salt) but also Mennonite Central Committee and the local church(es) which packed and paid for these particular cans. This year the Mtn. Lake area churches canned about 10,500 pounds of turkey into 2-lb cans, so roughly 5,250 cans of meat. This is then distributed by MCC both in North America and internationally to countries such as North Korea, former Soviet Union countries (more about that later), the Middle East, Haiti, Philippians and many others.

Here Anna participates quite seriously in the stamping. On the whole, though, they are a bit young for this endeavor to be entirely successful.

Visiting and eating are always highlights of meat canning. Here you can see that Ramont's brother, Radell (visiting from Harrisonburg, VA), was also there. On the stage in the background is where the meat gets cooked, packed into cans, sealed, and pressure canned.

In the foreground you see the frozen meat getting dumped into the grinder,

which Radell then pushed through the grinder (quite cheerfully, looks like).

The cooked, sealed, and cooled cans are then wiped clean and sent to the table on the left to have labels pasted on, stamped with numbers, and packed into boxes to be sent to MCC headquarters. People at the table on the right are stamping and preparing labels for the pasting on.

In another lifetime I worked with MCC canned meat at the receiving end, so I dug out some photos to show one area where this meat might get sent.

From 2002-2005 I coordinated shipments of material aid to countries in the Former Soviet Union. On one trip to the North Caucasus region of Russia. I happened to be at the North Ossetian Mission of Christian Compassion (MCC's partner, amusingly called NOMCC!) the very day an MCC shipment arrived. Here you see barrels of dried food (soups, fruit, etc), clothing and other things being unloaded. Much of this would eventually be distributed to children whose families were refugees or even casualties of war and conflict there.

Here you see boxes and boxes of canned meat that came in the same shipment. I couldn't even begin to describe what an amazing gift this was to the folks there.

And this is one of my favorite photos of material aid, taken at the North Caucasus Bible Institute.

From Minnesota to Russia, with love.