She saw burial grounds by the roadside in which arms and legs protruded from the ground, with dogs and vultures at them. She saw houses set on fire with people locked inside.

"I've seen things with my own eyes that I never thought men could do to their fellow men," she says. "All I did was pray to see another day."

Each time she fled, she put on three or four layers of clothing and grabbed her hygiene kit. When the thorns and bushes had shredded her outer layer of clothing, she peeled it off down to the next layer. She saw people repair shredded clothing with pins from the kits.

Sometimes there was time for school. Her sister received a school kit from Salt Lake. This is how valued it was: She broke the pencil into three pieces to share with her classmates. She shared the paper, and when they were done writing their lessons on it, they erased the paper so they could use it again.

She eventually joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and served a mission in Salt Lake City. One day she was touring the Humanitarian Center when she saw something familiar — a blanket like the one she had used to bury the old woman. "Is this where they come from?!" she asked. She saw the hygiene kits and the food and the clothing and wept.

"I saw how many blessings this one bag can bring," she says.

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Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesday. Please send e-mail to drob@desnews.com.