Finally! The container has arrived!
And so ends the most frustrating and tiresome effort ever undertaken by Tom-who is my new hero in the patience department! Who could have thought last December as we loaded up that 20’ shipping container full of donated equipment and tools that we would still be struggling to get it here 6 months later??
Money, ultimately, was not the problem-because many of you generously contributed to help defray the costs of shipping this ‘free container’ to Ethiopia.
Once we maxed out our credit cards and then simply directly asked some of you to help--the result was immediate and gratifying. Our friends and supporters are the best anywhere! If you had a part in this effort, please accept our heartfelt thanks once again.
The problem was dealing with a system of bureaucracy not understood by Westerners.
Crucial papers were lost-misplaced-misfiled-whatever could go wrong went wrong.
Tom was forced to make 8-10 separate trips back and forth to various towns trying to secure stamps and signatures of approval--which had already been approved-and yet he was made to do it over again. The things he had to do made no sense to us---I would have lost my cool months ago--but Tom stayed calm and on course. We later found out that the agent we had hired was unscrupulous and had delayed the release (probably in hopes of ‘augmenting’ his fee!)
But finally, the container was stamped approved and Tom had it immediately loaded onto a flatbed truck and then high-tailed it out of there to our town of Arba Minch, a 10 hour drive to the south.
So the repair work can really continue now in earnest-as we have many necessary tools at our disposal now.
First items to tackle in Turmi are:
Installing two rope pumps in two separate wells in surrounding area.
Repairing two cement tanks that were leaking due to cracks in the walls.
Installing solar panels on roofs of dorms to enable children to have 2-3 hrs of light in evenings.
Again, thank you to all of you who prayed and gave so we could get the container over here.
One last note- if you notice the photo attached here below-the case number of our trouble-plagued container?????
C-6666 That explains a lot, don’t you think???
In His joyful service,
Teresa and Tom
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