Container prep and sending off

January was a crazy month getting last-minute things shipped to us in preparation of packing up our container to send to Vanuatu and taking care of all the paperwork for shipping.  We are so grateful to New Tribes Mission and Friends in Action who put together a solar system package for us and got it shipped out just in time for us to pack up!  Our solar batteries arrived damaged but they were great and quickly sent out new ones that we got in new condition on the very last day possible.  Whew, thanks God!

 Apparently what happened is the trucking company packed some sort of rod of iron later after all our stuff was on its way that fell and managed to make connection with every single terminal in addition to busting through the cases!  Fortunately, we and the organizations we bought this from aren't responsible for the damages!

 A lot of our boxes got beat up too, but fortunately the items within them are ok so we didn't have to have any of these re-shipped to us.

 Praise God, the panels made it safe and sound!

We packed the container with heavy-duty totes for our small loose items and then for larger loose items, Houghton and my dad spent several days making 4x4 crates.  Having these allowed a much easier and faster pack up since there were fewer loose individual items to go in the container.

 Praise God for the donation of this 4-wheeler and the extra parts put on it!  This will be SO useful to us in Vanuatu, especially in getting our items from the cargo boats that'll bring our things in shifts to Ambrym island and drop things off about a 45 minute walk from our village.

 Crating this made it possible to pack it right up close to other items and also to pack things on top of it.

 The crates for all the other loose items.

 We are also thankful for a milder winter than last year that allowed these things to be built for the container.

 The trailer this is sitting on is what the 4-wheeler will pull with all our items inside once we're on Ambrym!

Grace Bible Church in Miles City gave us a great sending off.  We were given both morning services to share in and an evening service to show pictures, answer questions, and give updates on what God is doing in the ministry in Vanuatu.  We are so grateful for all our supporting individuals and churches and for our main sending church, Grace Bible!

 They had just put in these new screens the few days before our presentation so it was great to have such a high-tech way to show off what God is doing!

 The church board prayed for us as we go back to Vanuatu again.  It's a huge blessing to have you guys behind us in prayer.  Thank you so much!

 Dad and Clyde showing off the new t-shirts.  :)  We love the shameless advertising.