Going, Going, Gone

Wednesday, April 27th has been looming on our calendar for far too long.  We nailed down the date only one month ago when we were informed of the fact that rising gas prices would impact May trucking and shipping rates so it needed to happen in the month of April to avoid a hefty surcharge.  Somehow, everything we hoped to be bringing along with us to Malawi needed to be packed, labeled, numbered, measured, listed in a spreadsheet, and eventually loaded onto a 20 foot container.  That container would be on the back of a truck driven by a man who would be timing our loading to make sure that if we took longer than 2 hours, we would be charged for every hour we went over.  His arrival was scheduled for 1:00 pm and he would start charging after 3:00 pm.
Since early April Sarah and I have been planning and packing and trying to wrap our minds around what we might need once we arrived in Malawi.  We were clueless to what kind of house we would be living in, where we could store our stuff, what kind of items would be critical and which ones were optional.  Beyond all that, we knew one thing for certain - we had WAAAAYYYY more stuff than any 20 foot container would hold.  The finally tally was 40 plastic bins, 88 boxes of various sizes, and 44 pieces of hard to define size (including things like a couch, kid's bikes, a doll house, bookcases, and 2 trash barrels).  Oh yeah - and rain was predicted for Wednesday too.
When Wednesday morning arrived it was officially the first real day of warm, dry Spring we've had yet.  By 12:30 pm the truck had arrived and about 9 guys and 2 ladies from church to help in the loading.  We threw back some pizza and started loading by 12:40 pm (meaning we were squeaking in 20 free minutes to load before the 1:00 pm official load time).
Stuff came onto the track fast and furious, and more times than I care to recall, stuff came off the truck just as fast as we stacked, unstacked, and re-stacked boxes, bins and other items.  After about 30 minutes we realized that the slope of the driveway was working against us so we had the driver move onto the flat street before we continued.  By 2:30 pm it hit me for the first time.  Absolutely every item we hoped to load was going to fit.  More than that, by 2:45 Sarah and I were running in and out of the house grabbing more things to  throw on.  It was exhausting, at times frantic, and beautiful.  We closed and sealed the doors on the back of the container and I looked down at my watch which read 3:00:15.
We want to thank all those who prayed for us.  We thank all those who helped watch our girls while Sarah and I planned and packed.  We thank all of you who came to help us load.  And from the bottom of our hearts we are thankful "to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine".