Preparations

A number of you have asked to talk a little bit more about our preparations big and small for this trip. Some of you have seen some of the pictures below on Instagram.

As I’ve written about in an earlier post, Nate & I set a number of goals around November of 2018.  Then in January of 2019 we decided to focus on need-greating.  At that time, we were already working part time and living in an affordable-for-our-area apartment.  However, we knew we would need to reduce our expenses so as to save up for a trip.

We decided that time to just focus on reducing our main expense - rent.  Later that summer, Nate did increase his secular work so that we could save up more money.

Jehovah provided us with housing from April through November - thank you Randy & Lauren, thank you Keith & Dee!  We lived with another couple in their house in April & May, and then moved into an RV in another couple’s backyard in June.  We stayed in the camper until November.

Camper living

Since we no longer had a home of our own, our belongings went into an 8’x8’ storage unit.  Over the summer, we went through each and every item, some items multiple times, and decided what we would keep, throw away, donate or sell.

Here are the items we kept - they all fit into 7 storage totes.  These items are all being stored at our host family’s home in America - thank you Rita & Jerry!

3 large totes, 4 small totes, Nate’s hockey bag & sticks

Denver to SC trip - 4 bags each

Miami to Guyana trip - 2 bags each

Takeaways from all of this - yes you can do this.  Yes you can live with less than you perhaps are already.  Yes this takes time, energy, planning, blood, sweat and tears.  Ok, maybe not blood - depends how accident prone you are when moving objects.  I’m thankful we had the time to do a step-down approach.  That way we didn’t have any feelings of separation anxiety from our things - from going from a 2 bedroom apt full of things down to 2 suitcases apiece quickly.  Also, I’m thankful that we had so many friends willing to support us in this endeavor.  Certainly with having a goal to move to another country, there are a number of unknowns.  Having friends to lovingly help you through this time of transition is priceless.

Those were some of the bigger plans and arrangements we made.  Smaller ones included reading online blogs of others who had moved abroad or traveled extensively.  What clothes should we pack? What things should we bring?  What items could we buy once we arrived?  What could I bring with me that would help me feel settled or more at home quicker?

We ended up packing one large bag apiece with all clothes.  Since we were here for the ministry, the majority of clothes are meeting and preaching clothes.  All are cotton or linen.  I made the mistake of bringing one skirt that is 100% cotton but has a lining that is not cotton.  The skirt does not breathe.  Therefore, it is resigned to being a meeting skirt.  I can make it through 2 hours of sitting - I cannot make it through 8 hours of walking.  Also, since this area has Muslims, I was advised to bring tops with a sleeve of some sort.  I did bring some sleeveless tops but for the most part, I only wear these at home.  Of main importance with these choices was the material they were made of.  Also, we picked our shoe choices wisely as we knew we would be dealing with a lot of walking and also rainy/muddy conditions.  I brought one pair of leather closed toe shoes and 2 pairs of Crocs - washable!  One pair of Crocs is a sandal and I wear those to meetings and out in service.  The other pair are flip-flops and I mainly wear those inside our house.

Our smaller bags - one apiece - had toiletries and our iPads.  Since this area is mainly Caribbean with ethnic hair, I chose to bring shampoo.  I haven’t had to shop for that here so I don’t honestly know if I could find it or not.  I have seen advertisements for Head and Shoulders so I’m assuming at the very least, I could buy that locally.  The other toiletry items we brought were in travel bottles so that we at least had face wash and soap and other things for when we arrived and then we could buy these later. In my small bag, I also packed pictures and cards so that I could display these around our apt.  As every renter knows, the small things you can put up help a new place feel like home.  So pictures of our friends are on our fridge and a calendar from our dear friends in our Colorado congregation is on the wall - the friends signed or drew on different pages.

Colorado calendar 

We also did cursory research on things like electrical outlets and foreign SIM cards.  Guyana has a mixture of 110 vs 220 volts, and a variety of outlets.  As it ended up, our apt is 110V with regular North American plugs & outlets.  We didn’t know that for sure before we came so we limited the electronics we brought to just our phones and ipads and figured we could just buy an adapter and/or converter once we arrived.  We ended up not needing to buy anything so I’m thankful we didn’t buy these items in America and then not be using them.  Also, we waited until we arrived here to purchase local SIM cards.

Lastly, we tried to pack some practical things, both for the actual travel and then for living here. Two key items were power banks and flashlights.  We had heard that there are blackouts here - times when the electricity goes out. We have been here 39 days and have had blackout 10 times (9 at home and 1 at the Kingdom Hall). So since you don’t know how long you’ll have blackout for, we tried to keep our phones and iPads fully charged. If we need a battery boost, we just connect our phone to the power bank. The same reasoning was for the flashlight - our phones do have flashlights on them as well, but why use the phone and risk draining that battery? So Nate brought a headlamp and I brought a flashlight. I think 8 of our 9 blackouts have happened at night so we try to at least know where our lights are, then when the power goes out, we carefully get our light.