The Container

One of the most complicated pieces of our capital campaign has been coordinating a way for goods and materials to make the trek between our little corner of Iowa across the ocean to Liberia. Months ago we realized that we would have to load a shipping container and transport it across the ocean. Little did we know what an ordeal it would be!

On Friday, our container pulled into Rock Valley and parked in the loading dock of a local non-profit, Justice for All. How fitting that all of our goods were housed in such a wonderful place of ministry and outreach! And how appropriate that this haven of restoration became the site of a miracle... When some of our board members first surveyed all that had to be put in the container and began doing preliminary measurements and calculations of space (or lack there-of), it quickly became apparent that there was no way everything would fit. We were quite sure that the mattresses would have to be left behind. Or the clothes, or the books...

But God answers prayer and he heard our face-down pleas. Everything fit in the container with the exception of one mattress. We had 60 mattresses for the 58 kids at Christ Our Hope. The Lord left us with one extra mattress. How cool is that?

Anyway, the container is on it's way to Omaha where it will take off for the East Coast and beyond. It should reach the port of Monrovia in six to eight weeks--we didn't want to take any chances that it would be late for our work crew in November. 

I'm going to leave you with a couple photos of the loading process. Please stop back later this week as I spend some time outlining all the goodies that were shipped as well as thanking the people who made each contribution possible.