Making Light of the Load

Salta la Linda

Salta la Linda!  Beautiful Salta, a city nestled in the Andes Mountains, where we spent two years of ministry and home to our household belongings.  A beautiful morning and a fantastic view of snow covered mountains welcomed us to our next step of the journey.  And what a journey it has been . . . allow me to fast forward 2 1/2 weeks.  

Thankful for some great helpers!

Wow!  We're finally done. Twenty years of life in ministry, sentimental memories, accumulation and junk . . .  gone, sold, thrown away and given away.  The load is so much lighter now, oh, but the MEMORIES!  How can I even begin to express the emotions that we have experienced these past two and half weeks.  We knew this job would be difficult both physically and emotionally, but God has been so good to help lighten the load.  When we first began to unload all the barrels, boxes and trunks, the job looked daunting and I personally just wanted to "crawl" into a corner and cry.  How could we accumulate sooo much in 20 years?!  How do you let go of precious items that bring back so many fond memories?  I have a collection of children's artwork, souvenirs from every important event in the lives of our family and friends, baby blankets, binkies, recipes and photos.

Binkies belonging to Andrew, Aaron and Nathan

  How could we possibly get rid of all this stuff?  So thankful for the use of modern day equipment and communication, we snapped photos of the sentimental things and then threw some of the stuff away or donated it, then we set up a FaceBook event page, again snapping pictures of our more valuable items with our smart phones and loading them onto the page thanks to the use of our neighbor's wi-fi.  We invited our Argentine friends to the event page and we immediately began seeing positive results.  People actually wanted to buy our "stuff."  Then we began separating out those things we deemed garage sale items.  We set a date for the sale, Saturday, July 5th.  Saturday came and so did the people!  At the end of the day, we marveled that a room full of 20 years of accumulation was reduced to a few odds and ends, and even those things sold quickly the following week.  Some of you must have prayed, because the impossible, became possible!  Thank you!  
Yesterday, as we finished our packing and readied ourselves for the next part of this journey, we sold our last item, a portable children's pool (no one wants a pool in the middle of winter!), to a family with whom we became especially close during the process of this sale.  We had to pause and thank God for His goodness to us.  Our hearts are full, we have no regrets.  God is good!