My last day at Baylor College of Medicine was November 14 and everyday after that has been non-stop from sunrise to sundown.
The first major task was juggling 3 packing situations:
1. Pack 4-6 totes to be put on a shipping container going by boat to Malawi (estimated arrival in February or March-ish).
2. Pack 6 footlockers (partially filled) that we left at a friends garage until we get back to Houston after the holidays. These are filled with our must haves when we first get in country (clothes, books, etc.).
3. Pack for 4 weeks of cold winter weather in Saint Louis and another 2 weeks in Texas, plus stuff to go into storage in my parents basement.
After we had packed what needed to stay and go into storage at my parents house everything After we had packed what needed to stay and go into storage at my parents house everything went to the garage sale. That was an insane 3 days. We planned to hold the sale at a friend’s house from church, but bad weather forecast all week made us create a backup plan and have the sale in our church gymnasium. So we loaded up 2 giant van loads, 3 picks ups and 2.5 car loads of our stuff and emptied it into church gym. Starting at 8pm we had it all (plus offerings from 2 extra families) on tables and priced by 11pm.
In proper garage sale fashion we made a midnight run to Walmart for extra signs and were up till 1am making final touches to stuff. The next morning was painfully early but when we drove up to church at 6:15 AM our faithful Warnecke was there with bells on (well actually just baby G in her baby sling) ready to go.
I don’t think we stopped moving until 3pm when the last van load was packed into a friends van for Goodwill donation. In the end we made about $1800 which is amazing!!! I just kept looking out at all he stuff and thinking “Why did we ever own that much junk?”
There is no way we could have done this without the help of our church family and everyone who came to help sell and buy. We left for Saint Louis on Monday, Nov 24th and have been staying with family since then. We are excited to get closer and closer to our departure date. The count down is now to about 28 days. Continue to pray for us as we travel to see friends and family over the next few weeks and continue to pray for our mission in Malawi.