A funny part of living here is hearing stories of what people packed that they heard they could not get in country.
I packed mini-dv tapes and printer ink. A lot of it. I bought it in bulk before we left so that it would cost less, and I brought a lot of it here.
Good thing too, because it's hard to come by and pricey. The funny thing is, I've used maybe 5 of the 30 tapes I've brought, and 3 of the ink cartridges I brought.
Now, 1.5 years later we're sort of laughing at our surplus of ink and tapes. We could easily have gone this long without such a huge supply. But we didn't know, we were rookies of course, novice, naive. Now SOCKS, I should have packed more SOCKS, I haven't adapted to the "barefoot" culture.
Anyway.. the point is, that 1 week ago someone put up an announcement,
"I'm leaving for home and need someone to help me print 200 copies of my newsletter in color."
well we had ink, so we said "sure come on over."
Then last night a translator put up another announcement,
"we need to videotape our Bible Dedication, but we have no blank mini-dv tapes... can anyone help us, we need at least 5 tapes, today!!"
What are the odds that anyone would have such a surplus of mini-dv tapes? I called them up and said "we live to serve, come on over."
God knew.
I don't recommend hording items as a practice, but it is interesting that the things we tended to over-stock actually came to some usefulness to the community here.
Folks around here tend to pull together in this way. Yes we have to be faithful to those who support us, and how we spend our money, and not all of us can afford to be financially generous, but as a whole, the believers living and serving together, we really do rely on each other to get by here.
It is nice to live like that, in a community, a neighborhood that pulls together.
