Moving

We moved the Bible school the other day.  The previous missionaries to Honduras were killed in a car accident a few years ago, and since then the Bible school has been held in their house and basement.  They are renting a place for a couple of months while the construction will be going on on the new property. 

Moving the school was quite a job.  Several men from the church are out of work and came to help to pick up a little extra money.  We moved copiers, desks, filing cabinets, computers, books, etc.

The quality of anything in this country runs about an order of magnitude behind what it does in the US.  They make stuff last for a long time too.  Many of the filing cabinets are old and rusted.  All the desks could use a good refurbishing.  Some of the computers look like what I used about 10 years ago (maybe a 486 – they aren’t all this old, but I’ve seen some dot matrix printers too).  People just have a different expectation about things here.  The concept of something being “nice” almost doesn’t exist.  It just matters if it works or not.  Looks and age are completely unimportant.  This concept is true with everything.  Certainly with the cars they drive.  The average age of cars is probably 10 to 15 years behind the US.  Also with house construction.  (I may write more about this later.) 

Anyway, when we were halfway thru the day and paused for a break, I witnessed something interesting.  As we were going thru the stuff to move we came across several boxes of personal stuff from the former missionaries.  Frankly, it was mostly junk.  The kind of stuff that you’d put in your attic in case you ever need it, but you never do and then eventually throw away.  As with anytime that you are moving, we started a trash pile.  It grew to be fairly large by noon.  When we paused for a break, all the men from the church started rummaging thru that pile.  Anything that could be considered remotely valuable was taken with great joy.  Someone found a little teacup and took it to their wife.  An old, wooden Rudolf decoration popped up and someone took it.  Pieces of rope or chain.  It really didn’t matter.  If it could be considered remotely valuable, someone was glad to have it.  We have a lot to be thankful for.