Survivor or Victim of the Flood?

The lost has been found! This weekend when we went to move somethings from a friend's house on the school campus, the director told me that they had found our washing machine and water cooler (sorry I don't have a picture of it, but it is a glorified fan that stores water to humidify the air). It turns out that instead of being in one of the many containers that we had searched they were stored in a magasin (a cement storage building). Unfortunately they had been almost completely submersed in the murky river water that had taken over the school and had remained there until last week. We still don't know if they are victims or survivors. We have gone through extensive cleaning and drying and tried to get the washer going today, but the motor was seized up and wouldn't move. So, we called in the repairman and are hoping that between his skills and our prayers this might turn into a survivor. Otherwise, I will be hand washing until we can afford to replace it. I am just grateful to know where it is so that we can move forward from here.

There was a gas shortage in town this week, people were lined up at various gas stations around town for miles. I was so grateful that our new (to us) vehicle takes diesel and I was able to fill my tank before the real problems started to build up. I had friends that waited in line for 8 hours and where only allowed to buy the equivalent of $20 worth of gas. This coupled with a taxi strike has made transportation issues interesting.

The last week or so has been very tiring just to get settled into the house. We made several trips to the electric company to get the account transferred into our name, the same for the phone and internet company, and waited for days for the technician to finish servicing the air conditioners in our house. Even though he started a week ago Wednesday, he only just finished today. The problem with all these things is that half the time they need to get into the house and set meeting times and then never show up. Wednesday I waited down the street at the main intersection for an hour for a man who was coming to find our house to place a garbage can for pick up service. I finally called and asked if he was coming. He apologized, saying he had totally forgotten our rendez-vous but that he would come in fifteen minutes. The time was not lost as I made a new friend of a street vendour who was BBQing brochettes. I also happened to standing across from where our old house was a couple of old neighbours saw me and came over to chat and ask where we were living.

Pray that we would be able to redeem the time even when we are forced to wait and that the Lord would give us patience. Please also pray that the evacutation procedures that we have put into place would be successful in getting the furry friends that have taken up residence in the insulation in our stove to relocate.