Tuesday Night, October 3, 2006
Well, we haven’t had Internet since Friday morning of last week and therefore, I haven’t been bothering to write updates. I am composing this, as I did the post for last Friday, not knowing when it will actually get published. Things have not gotten any easier since the last time that I wrote. I have often said that ‘God is never later, but He is also seldom early.” It seems that we are really being tested on this one.
Pamela’s suitcase still is not here, but “ it will be tomorrow”. Of course, tomorrow never comes for as soon as it does, it is actually today. We finally got to see the house that we have waited 10 days to see. We were very excited about seeing it because it was on a paved road, in a good area, and appeared very nice from the road. We got to see the inside on Monday and were greatly disappointed. Some Chinese men have been renting the house and conducting some type of fish business from the house. They had many nets, scales, and curing areas for the fish and the house was filthy and reeked of fish smells. There were fish parts scattered around as well. The house was also run down. We went from that house to another house that we were also hopeful about, but it was also very dirty and rundown on the inside. After being disappointed by these two houses, we went to a house that I loved, though Pamela wasn’t so sure. It had a beautiful yard, with a diversity of mature trees and shrubs. The house was English tudor with exposed beams in the pitched ceilings and hardwood floors in the living areas. It was very clean and very nice, though not as large as we had hoped and did not have a garage. It didn’t really matter anyway, since the owner told us that he wants $2000 per month for rent. Every house that we have liked has been very expensive and/or in a bad location. We really are not sure what we should do. There is still one house that is an option that is only $1000 but it only has space for one car and it would be almost impossible to have any guests since there is no parking.
I am not sure if I explained this or not, but almost all of the homes have a compound, which is composed of a perimeter wall and vehicle gate. Many people have a guard to man the gate. Within the wall are your house, driveway, and yard. Some compounds are very large with lawns and trees. Others only have a driveway and sometimes no grass or gardens. The houses in the area where we want to live often do not have any grass or trees. The houses that are further away and very hard to access (especially for the students that we are here to minister to) usually have large compounds with good parking, grass, and trees. I have been praying that God would provide a house that is close to the boys’ school, near or on a paved road so that it will be accessible, and finally that it would have a compound where our boys can play some. The English tudor house had all of these things.
We were notified yesterday that we have to be out of the guesthouse by next Monday. Also, our container may be released as soon as next week. If we have a house, we would love for our container to be released next week. If we don’t have a house, then we have nowhere to put the stuff from our container. We were told today that the containers here cost around $4500. I really don’t need to spend that kind of money right now.
We had our container validation today, and it went pretty well. This is where they empty out your container to see if your actual contents match the list that you submitted to customs. The good news is that the customs agent appeared to be easy on us, though I will not know for sure for a couple of days. The rough part is the way that our stuff was treated. They were not supposed to open the container until I arrived, but when I got there our stuff was everywhere. The most irritating part was seeing our mattresses lying in the dirt. We had covered them in plastic wraps in Florida, but apparently they tore the plastic when they drug them through the dirt and gravel. Some of these mattresses were brand new, but now are very dirty and even torn along the edges. I had to keep reminding myself that it all belongs to God and that it will all burn up some day. He could have prevented this if He desired. When they finished verification, they started loading our stuff back on the container. I suspected pretty early that they wouldn’t be able to pack it as efficiently as our crew in Florida, and I was correct. They couldn’t get three pieces of weight equipment, an office chair, or our gas grill back on the container. I hope that we see them all again once customs are cleared. Please pray that they will not try to charge us taxes. Personal effects are not supposed to be taxable. However, they were questioning some of our new things, like the batteries and inverter for electricity. We found out the hard way that donated items are taxable. That doesn’t make sense, but that is the case. We should not have labeled anything as donated. We need to settle this on several things, but primarily the weight equipment. We need God’s favor with the customs agents and the “long room” where the paper processing is done.
We got some very good news on our visas on Monday. We went to check on the process and they extended our visas for two more months…for free. It only took about 10 minutes. It is the only efficient thing that we have done for the month that we have been here. We still have to apply for our work visas and because we cannot get email we cannot get the documents that we need to process them. If you read this, however, it means that we got back on the internet and probably made some progress.
We are getting weary and are very ready to have a place to call home. It appears that we will have to leave the guesthouse by next Monday, which would be fine if we had a place to go. If we don’t have a house when our container clears customs, we don’t have anywhere to store our stuff. The ideal situation would be to have a house by Monday, but it doesn’t look very likely at this point. We are asking for a miracle. We don’t want to settle and be in the wrong house. We want God’s will, and we need to clearly see it. We have been waiting and trying to be patient. However, the urgency that we are now experiencing is due to circumstances outside of our control.
We continue to meet some great missionaries staying in the next-door guesthouse. It has been very encouraging and a great source of advice as we have meet people who have been here as little as six months or as much as 20 years. Our neighbors this weekend had three kids that our boys played with and we all enjoyed hanging out together. We even grilled out. I was very excited when I we found t-bone steaks that were less than $2/pound. However, the excitement soon diminished when I tasted them. The cows here are free range, which means that they eat what they can find in this crowded city and walk a lot. Thus, they are very lean and the meat is tough. The chickens (and goats) are similar. At least the pork is pretty good. I guess that there is no such thing as a skinny pig.
I am publishing this from a restaurant that has internet access. We have not had email access for 5 days and do not know when the internet will be back at our guesthouse. We are unable to reply to emails right now.
Well, we haven’t had Internet since Friday morning of last week and therefore, I haven’t been bothering to write updates. I am composing this, as I did the post for last Friday, not knowing when it will actually get published. Things have not gotten any easier since the last time that I wrote. I have often said that ‘God is never later, but He is also seldom early.” It seems that we are really being tested on this one.
Pamela’s suitcase still is not here, but “ it will be tomorrow”. Of course, tomorrow never comes for as soon as it does, it is actually today. We finally got to see the house that we have waited 10 days to see. We were very excited about seeing it because it was on a paved road, in a good area, and appeared very nice from the road. We got to see the inside on Monday and were greatly disappointed. Some Chinese men have been renting the house and conducting some type of fish business from the house. They had many nets, scales, and curing areas for the fish and the house was filthy and reeked of fish smells. There were fish parts scattered around as well. The house was also run down. We went from that house to another house that we were also hopeful about, but it was also very dirty and rundown on the inside. After being disappointed by these two houses, we went to a house that I loved, though Pamela wasn’t so sure. It had a beautiful yard, with a diversity of mature trees and shrubs. The house was English tudor with exposed beams in the pitched ceilings and hardwood floors in the living areas. It was very clean and very nice, though not as large as we had hoped and did not have a garage. It didn’t really matter anyway, since the owner told us that he wants $2000 per month for rent. Every house that we have liked has been very expensive and/or in a bad location. We really are not sure what we should do. There is still one house that is an option that is only $1000 but it only has space for one car and it would be almost impossible to have any guests since there is no parking.
I am not sure if I explained this or not, but almost all of the homes have a compound, which is composed of a perimeter wall and vehicle gate. Many people have a guard to man the gate. Within the wall are your house, driveway, and yard. Some compounds are very large with lawns and trees. Others only have a driveway and sometimes no grass or gardens. The houses in the area where we want to live often do not have any grass or trees. The houses that are further away and very hard to access (especially for the students that we are here to minister to) usually have large compounds with good parking, grass, and trees. I have been praying that God would provide a house that is close to the boys’ school, near or on a paved road so that it will be accessible, and finally that it would have a compound where our boys can play some. The English tudor house had all of these things.
We were notified yesterday that we have to be out of the guesthouse by next Monday. Also, our container may be released as soon as next week. If we have a house, we would love for our container to be released next week. If we don’t have a house, then we have nowhere to put the stuff from our container. We were told today that the containers here cost around $4500. I really don’t need to spend that kind of money right now.
We had our container validation today, and it went pretty well. This is where they empty out your container to see if your actual contents match the list that you submitted to customs. The good news is that the customs agent appeared to be easy on us, though I will not know for sure for a couple of days. The rough part is the way that our stuff was treated. They were not supposed to open the container until I arrived, but when I got there our stuff was everywhere. The most irritating part was seeing our mattresses lying in the dirt. We had covered them in plastic wraps in Florida, but apparently they tore the plastic when they drug them through the dirt and gravel. Some of these mattresses were brand new, but now are very dirty and even torn along the edges. I had to keep reminding myself that it all belongs to God and that it will all burn up some day. He could have prevented this if He desired. When they finished verification, they started loading our stuff back on the container. I suspected pretty early that they wouldn’t be able to pack it as efficiently as our crew in Florida, and I was correct. They couldn’t get three pieces of weight equipment, an office chair, or our gas grill back on the container. I hope that we see them all again once customs are cleared. Please pray that they will not try to charge us taxes. Personal effects are not supposed to be taxable. However, they were questioning some of our new things, like the batteries and inverter for electricity. We found out the hard way that donated items are taxable. That doesn’t make sense, but that is the case. We should not have labeled anything as donated. We need to settle this on several things, but primarily the weight equipment. We need God’s favor with the customs agents and the “long room” where the paper processing is done.
We got some very good news on our visas on Monday. We went to check on the process and they extended our visas for two more months…for free. It only took about 10 minutes. It is the only efficient thing that we have done for the month that we have been here. We still have to apply for our work visas and because we cannot get email we cannot get the documents that we need to process them. If you read this, however, it means that we got back on the internet and probably made some progress.
We are getting weary and are very ready to have a place to call home. It appears that we will have to leave the guesthouse by next Monday, which would be fine if we had a place to go. If we don’t have a house when our container clears customs, we don’t have anywhere to store our stuff. The ideal situation would be to have a house by Monday, but it doesn’t look very likely at this point. We are asking for a miracle. We don’t want to settle and be in the wrong house. We want God’s will, and we need to clearly see it. We have been waiting and trying to be patient. However, the urgency that we are now experiencing is due to circumstances outside of our control.
We continue to meet some great missionaries staying in the next-door guesthouse. It has been very encouraging and a great source of advice as we have meet people who have been here as little as six months or as much as 20 years. Our neighbors this weekend had three kids that our boys played with and we all enjoyed hanging out together. We even grilled out. I was very excited when I we found t-bone steaks that were less than $2/pound. However, the excitement soon diminished when I tasted them. The cows here are free range, which means that they eat what they can find in this crowded city and walk a lot. Thus, they are very lean and the meat is tough. The chickens (and goats) are similar. At least the pork is pretty good. I guess that there is no such thing as a skinny pig.
I am publishing this from a restaurant that has internet access. We have not had email access for 5 days and do not know when the internet will be back at our guesthouse. We are unable to reply to emails right now.
posted by Ironside Tribe at 3:13 AM
3 Comments:
We will be praying for God's favor, the favor of the locals to be helpful and accomodating to you, and for strength to continue walking through these challenging times. We are so proud of your willingness to follow God and He will by no means leave you now! There is no doubt He has a great work for you there.
God's best to you and the family,
Dean Craig
Kevin and Pamela,
Praying for that miracle for next week! One day these are going to be wonderful stories to tell and laugh about while sharing about your experiences. Then,they will be forgotten in heaven. The Lord bless you all.
Praying for you to see God's hand at work in the midst of some discouraging situations. Praying for a miracle on the house situation and taxes on the container. Be blessed!
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