MOVING DAYS

We found a 3-bedroom townhouse in Hochlandpark before Christmas, but it did not become available until 16 January. Since we had to vacate our borrowed flat on 9 January, we spent the intervening week in Swakopmund, a beach resort town on the Atlantic coast. While there we visited with two pastors with whom we will be working. Welly du Toit is the pastor of Walvis Bay North Dutch Reformed Church and Manus Olivier is the pastor of the Swakopmund Dutch Reformed Church. He also preaches at Swakop River Community Church.

Finally, our much-awaited moving day arrived. Most of the boxes had already been stored in our landlord’s garage before leaving for Swakopmund, so moving day consisted mainly of unpacking the bins we had sent over with the outreach teams this summer. It did not take too long to find a place for everything and afterwards the house still looked empty. Nevertheless for the first time in two months, we had a place to call home.

For the next two weeks, we still slept on a borrowed twin mattress (very cozy) and ate on the patio furniture left by our landlords, Jan and Mika Erasmus.

The container arrived in port on Jan. 13 but was not delivered until Jan. 27. Late that Monday afternoon, we got a call that the container was on its way to Hodygos (YFC’s headquarters). We literally dropped everything and rushed to Hodygos only to find that the truck had gotten lost. It arrived right before the rain and darkness. It was an unloading zoo. Boxes were literally flying off the container, while we tried frantically to save our breakables and computers from certain destruction and separate them from the contents destined for the other places.

Then, while the sofas and cardboard boxes were arrayed on the dirt like an eviction proceeding, it began to rain. Wind, sand and rain mixed together make mud. We are learning to hold on lightly to our belongings. Darkness set in before the container was emptied. We then loaded our stuff onto a separate truck by the faint light of far off poles. With a couple of trips, we got it all under cover. This warehouse-type building was under construction with no way to secure it. So we had to sleep there to guard everything. At least we slept on our own mattress for the first time in over two months. Well, sleep is a bit of an exaggeration. We got to lay down and swat mosquitoes all night.

In the morning, most items had dried due to the dry climate. We packed an open-bed truck (that’s Dave Fortin on the truck) and our Isuzu bakkie (pickup) and headed for Windhoek (thanks be to God, everything fit). By noon we re-united our home and our belongings for the first time since leaving Orlando.