Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, Busy, Busy, Busy

Occasionally, Allen offers a suggestion for a title of a blog post. Today, he suggested, “Crazy, Crazy, Crazy” or “Busy, Busy, Busy”. After thinking about it and rereading the notes from our conversation, it seemed prudent to smoosh the two suggestions together. Welcome to the Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, Busy, Busy, Busy blog post!

Members of the S4P crew, unloading
a spool of cable from the MD container

It’s a universal truth that sometimes things don’t go exactly according to plan. That universal truth is never more true than in the daily lives of the Sowers! The Sowers were anticipating hosting back-to-back teams, but the second team postponed its trip for personal reasons. The group plans on rescheduling for sometime later this year. While Allen, Russell, and Trish were disappointed by the postponement, it is not without its blessings.

You see, the Sowers are essentially booked with visiting teams through March. This unexpected postponement by one team has given the Sowers almost a full week of work days, and they intend to take full advantage of the gift of time. Here are a few of the things on their agenda:

• This is the first time they have ever received two shipping containers at basically the same time and that amounts to a heap of work. Russell will be taking all of the contents of the shipping containers and organizing it.

• They are entering what Russell calls the “super busy backpack distribution season”. This is the first time they have had eight sponsorship programs operating at the same time. This extra time will be used to organize a slew of backpacks filled with school supplies for the children in those programs. Russell says this gift of time means they “will not be running around like chickens with their heads cut off,” which is undoubtedly a good thing.

Using the Land Cruiser to ferry the contents
of the container from Gracias, up to our property.
The big container truck only goes as far as Gracias.

• The new water tank will get some attention and Russell and the crew will be able to put the tubing together. (There was probably some more construction talk, but “tubing” was the word I understood. We’ll just go with that.)

• The Sowers are also catching up on IRS paperwork--both their personal and ministry filings. The ministry filings alone take days of work to complete.

• Russell and Allen will have more time to prepare for future team visits. Kim Hall’s team arrives in two weeks and two construction teams are scheduled to arrive soon. That means extra preparation to make sure all of the supplies are lined up, etc...

• Part of Russell’s attention will go to preparing for work during the dry season on the coffee farm.

• Trish is hoping that, with this extra bit of time, the eviction of the opossum from their home/warehouse can be moved up on the schedule a bit, too.

So, while the postponement of a team visit was not welcome news, Sowers4Pastors is making a big ol’ pitcher of lemonade from lemons. Even Allen admitted they were almost overloaded with commitments.

Unloading the big orange container from Maryland!

In other news… The political protests have calmed down, which is what allowed for the delivery of the second shipping container. The ministry did take a financial hit by having to pay a fee for having the containers stored for extra time. In the grand scheme of things, that is peanuts! The valuable supplies on the containers were worth far more than the unanticipated fees.

Allen would like to remind people that the news can be very sensationalized. The job of news sources is to hone in on the worst things that have happened. Overall, Allen feels the political climate is much more calm than it was immediately following the election. That is great news during this crazy, crazy, crazy, busy, busy, busy season!

 - posted by Christi