Catching up!

Things are certainly hopping around here!  We made our trip to NC and left some things at my Mom's house.  Our winter coats and some special scrapbooks will stay stored with her while we're in Belize.  I may be shipping some more things up there once we get closer to leaving.  (Heads up, Mom.:))

We have also been making quite a few trips to Goodwill and our other local charities, dropping off items that didn't sell from our yardsale, and anything else I can find that needs a new home.  Little by little, things are leaving our house and going somewhere else!  

We met with another family who is moving to Belize also.  They're from a town about 3 hours away from us in Texas, so we met them almost 1/2 way to get our families together.  They have a 5y.o. daughter and an 18m.o. son.  We learned a lot from them about things they've been researching.  They told us about a shipping company that we'll definitely be looking into.  We found out that we can ship things in 55gallon drums for about $150 a barrel.  That's a great deal compared to the original shipping containers we heard about.   A 20ft. shipping container would have cost us about $4000 to get down there & we really didn't even need that much storage room.  So, the barrel concept is very appealing to us!  I can ship a lot of our books, some toys, clothes, etc. and not worry about fitting it all into our suitcases.   We are also looking into these containers similar to tool boxes that pass airport regulations.   For about $35 a piece, we can buy a container and use it along with our luggage on the airplane.   Once in Belize, we can still use them for storage.  

Another tidbit we learned from the "F" family was that the Belize embassy told them they would need an exit ticket paid for to be able to come to Belize long-term.  I haven't verified this myself yet, but to my understanding, we would need to have ROUND-TRIP tickets purchased for everyone.   Open-ended or round-trip tickets that have a return date several months in the future are very expensive, so this is a big deal for me right now.  

We are probably going to go in person and get the 3 remaining passports done.  It seems so much easier to go to Houston and do our passports than to deal with the local post office personnel.   Please be praying for this to go smoothly.

Tonight, we are having a Chick-Fil-A fundraiser that some awesome friends of ours have arranged.  They know quite a bit about fundraising and relying on God's provision. ;-)   Also, Dan is looking into some part-time job options because we need to keep the funds coming in while we work towards our goals.  Because we are operating independently of a mission board, we simply can't get to Belize unless God provides the funds.  In the meantime, we need to keep buying groceries, paying bills and putting gas in vehicles. :-)   

Ok, that's all for now!!  I'll keep you posted!