Stuff

Last week was our first week off from work. It should have been a leisurely time of relaxation - but as usual, we found more than enough tasks to fill our days. One of these, probably the most taxing, was to make more decisions about "stuff". Our future daughter-in-law, Katie, was headed to Honduras with a mission work group (Heart to Honduras) on Saturday. It was our opportunity to send some things ahead. Darrin and Julie, the MCC leaders in Honduras, kindly agreed to meet them at the airport to pick up our bags and store for us in San Pedro Sula until we arrive in August.

Well - it was a bigger challenge than we had anticipated. I mean, we already unloaded a ton of stuff with a garage sale the beginning of May. Then there was the stuff that went to Goodwill and MCC Connections, and the loads of furniture et.al. (and a tractor) to our children, storage at Norm & Sandy's house, not to mention two trips to the landfill, and...... Hey, what else could be left? So we sorted and separated the sheep from the goats and packed and re-packed and found some more goats in the midst of the sheep until we finally got down to five bags all within the airline limits of size and weight. Thank goodness for space bags - plastic bags that can be hooked up to a sweeper to suck all the air out to turn a stack of clothes into a compact brick. Our only hope is that some baggage inspector doesn't open one of those plastic bags because there is no way they are going to get them back into that piece of luggage. Imagine a volcanic eruption of clothing.

Here's the send off - that's Katie in the middle - our trusty envoy with our pre-shipment of worldly possessions.

We did receive an email from Darrin letting us know all were received and are safely tucked away at their home. Apparently no space bags were opened and none of the bags weighing in at 49.999999 pounds were found over the limit.


I should clarify, that this was an unusual privilege for us. As challenging as we found this, normally MCC volunteers are limited to the customary 2-bags plus carry-on when traveling to assignment. My hat's off to them.....the hat that ended up in the goat pile.

Which leads me to some thoughts about "stuff". How much stuff do we need? What is enough? Back in the days of my youth in those wonderful 60's-70's, we were intent on living the simple life. Now, after all these years, it has been a sobering experience to look through all our accumulated stuff, literally piece-by-piece, and to make decisions about the merit of each. I remember my parents going through this as they prepared for an auction prior to moving from their home in the country to smaller quarters in a retirement community. Maybe we have saved ourselves and our children some pain by having to go through this now?

Others are apparently experiencing some of the same. There is an interesting movement called 100 Thing Challenge begun by Dave Bruno. Maybe it will catch on.

Finally - there is a great Haitian Creole proverb to addresses this:
"Pa genyen miz'e, genyen traka"
Translated: "To not have is misery, but to have is just trouble". (It sounds better in Creole, especially if you roll the "r" and spit out the last word)
That had so many layers of meaning in Haiti. I suspect when we get to Honduras our five space-bagged, 49 pound pieces of luggage may seem more than enough. Hopefully they will not seem like traka.