Shipping Out......... 

You may not have seen Steph and Simon's recent blog, where details of a recent shipment to Sierra Leone were posted? So, in case you missed it, I'm "re-posting" it here now. I hope that the shippment arrives before I do on 5th April!

Towards the end of last week, Rob Lea and I had a full day with the van, first loading up with boxes of schoolbooks (kindly donated by Fox Hill School – thanks again!) and then to fetch 90 (yes, ninety!) computers which the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) had generously donated. Then it was back to EBC to fill the remaining space on the van with a keyboard, lighting rigs, more computers and more books plus school furniture which we had stowed away in the shed ready for this day! 


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Fully loaded, we then drove about 80 miles to a place called Rockel Shipping, where we unloaded the lot with the help of a chap who was not only deceptively strong (seriously strong!) but seemed to be blessed with an uncanny ability to fit very many computers into very few boxes as if completing a ginormous Rubik’s cube….
Rob and I had a great time that day, not only because we had hours to chat (and, to be fair, it’s safe to say our views on life, the universe and everything are not entirely dissimilar…) but also because despite the hard work of loading and unloading, despite the long journey, and despite Rockel Shipping’s base of operations being slightly less salubrious than Tracey Island (see pics)… it was a day of proper ministry! 

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Yes, it was a long day and  hard work, but the beauty of it was that all that stuff is now bound (via Rockel’s good offices) for the distant land of Sierra Leone, where our good friend Abs Dumbuya will be waiting to distribute it to the children and young people of the Leonard Cheshire Home in Freetown, Regent’s Road Baptist Church and its school, the school at EBC Tombo and, I dare say, the Dorothy Springer Trust where there may conceivably be some preliminary work to be done on some of the computers (for which, as designated driver, I take my share of the blame for any – ahem - damage-in-Transit…).  
Tired but happy, we finally had a well-earned coffee and  headed home. As the boys of International Rescue would say: FAB!

Blog 5
 
One empty van – except our manly Storehouse toolkit (bottom right) - and one happy Rob!
 
Rob Lea, 21/02/2017