ACE eNews

Dear all,

Well, finally I got a chance to write. Jennie and I arrived on Tuesday, quite tired, but OK. Then...(Wally will relate to this) NO BAGS. Of 4, there was nothing!

So we had to wear what we had on and wait till Thursday hoping and praying for the best. Back to the airport.....and the good news was there were three bags, but not the one with our clothes, personal items or computer gear.. So now we had to wait again till Saturday the day the next BA flight comes into Zambia.

Saturday we are off again to the airport. Uncle G. was late so he borrowed Pastor Flemings truck that Tom Ravensberg and Ben Day helped him buy last August. He parked the truck at H of M and we drove to the airport together in my Pajero. Finally..the BAG!!!

As we were leaving the airport, I looked at the gas gauge and saw we needed fuel. (Nothing new there!) So, we took a short detour and stopped at the filling station. As we parked at the pump I noticed a lady with an infant and a small boy sitting on big white bags. I immediately knew what was in the bags. CORN!

I asked Uncle G. to go over to the lady and inquire. She told him she had come from the village and wanted to go to the Soweto market to sell it. Now Soweto from the airport is a very long bus ride away and busses do not come along very often. So, taking a risk, I asked Uncle G to see if she would sell us the corn saving her the trip and the cost of the transport to the marketplace. We calculated her savings and we agreed that 34,000/50KG was fair. The current market price is 38,000 and so it was a good deal for both of us. :-)

Not wanting to move on the deal before asking Evaristo, I called him and he said DO IT! So, we drove back to the House of Moses where we just happened to have Flemings truck with a lift gate and two strong young men waiting for Uncle G and I to return from the airport.

Evaristo, not wanting to miss the action, decided to drive over to the House of Moses to see the corn for himself. Just a moment after he pulled into the driveway, Uncle G. and the truck are right behind. And there in the front seat is the lady and her children. Although I had given Uncle G the money to pay for the corn, she came back to say that she was sure that some of the bags weighed more than 50KG. (the village has no scale) and she wanted us to weight them. OOPS! No scale. Seeing we were perplexed, Elizabeth (Evaristo's wife) talked to her in the vernacular language and she agreed to take the money as agreed.

After some refreshments in the sitting room she told us that she had 40 more bags in the village and that the other farmers had corn as well to sell. The issue was getting transport to go to town to sell it and she was one of the first to manage to scrap together the funds to come to Lusaka. Where is your village we asked? Only about 10 kilometers from the airport, or as we say, a stone's throw from House of Moses.

The lady will return to House of Moses on Monday and we will hire our CACZ truck (at a profit) to go to the village and buy corn. We will buy a scale and bring it with us.

Bruce, Larry, Erich, Claud thanks for all of the effort in helping to present the vision with such clarity, and thank you Lord for directing us to corn at a good price. Wally.....go girl!

With love from Zambia,
Sandra and the team