Container news

While being here in the States, we took the opportunity to work on the remaining issues with the container.  We have reported recently on it but to get you up-to-date, fairly recently we found out that the container was needing to be switched from being a container of both donations and personal belongings (our stuff!) to a container of only donations.  We could basically still send our personal belongings but they would be considered donations to the Covenant Church in Ecuador as far as the container goes.  That isn’t a problem at all, the problem that came with this is the fact that Ecuador does not accept donations of “used clothing” so all of the used clothing needed to be removed.  The problem there, of course, is that we have a lot “used clothing” in our personal belongings to be sent down.  For this reason while being here in the States, Joel decided to travel out to Ohio to get all of our clothes out of the things to be packed on the container.  He was able to do that on Friday, May 16th as well as while he was there, he was able to get all of the paperwork for the container signed, notarized, and apostilled (international notary) by the folks at Coshocton Christian Tabernacle.  Many thanks need to go out to Janae Stevens and Angie Eberhard for their help with all of that.

Then, last Thursday, May 22nd, Joel traveled out to Chicago to visit the office of Ecuadorian Consulate, what you see pictured above.  There he was able to get all of that official paperwork legalized for the country of Ecuador.  So, the paperwork is now all set and ready to go.  Once we return to Ecuador, Joel will just need to deliver this paperwork to the port of Guayaquil where the container will be arriving and then the container can be sent from Ohio, so we are just waiting for this one last step.

In addition, to visiting the Ecuadorian consulate last Thursday, Joel was also able to accomplish one more important thing that day.  As you know, we now have a lot of clothes that need to get down to Ecuador.  Joel got in touch with a friend, Pastor Dan Teefey to see if their church could help us in getting our clothes down to Ecuador.  Dan’s church is Riverside Covenant Church of West Lafayette, IN and they are sending a team of 27 people down to Ecuador this Sunday.  Dan and his church were extremely kind and very willing to help us out of our jam.  They will be bringing 3 50 lb bags of clothes down for us Sunday!  Thank you so much Riverside Covenant Church!!!