One of the really fun aspects of living overseas is that we
have opportunities to be involved in some unique spheres of society. This past year I have enjoyed the world of
shipping containers (this coming from someone who still enjoys Richard Scarry’s
“Cars and Trucks” book). If you have
been following the sub-plot of our shipping container on this blog, then you
will know that the container was picked up last month from a farm outside of Ann Arbor,
Michigan, after John had packed it to the gills. As it turns out, we can track the container,
just like a UPS package, only hopefully it is harder to lose. So I went to the tracking website and plugged
in the container number and found that it had been put on a train in Detroit and
traveled by rail to New York. It was
then placed on the MSC Toronto (pictured below) and is on its way to Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania, via Salalah, Oman. It
is due to arrive in Tanzania sometime in October. At that point, it can travel over land to
Burundi.
A Google search about “MSC Toronto” yields all kinds of information
about the boat (built in 2006, managed by someone named Reederei Claus-Peter,
max speed of 13.4 knots, length of 325m), and better yet, I found that I can get real-time
information about the position of the boat and its path. The picture below shows that the MSC Toronto
is currently docked in Richmond.
You can bet that I will be watching carefully when this
vessel heads down the east coast of Africa in some weeks… hopefully no pirates
are reading this blog who would be interested in all the books and peanut
butter stashed away in our container!
Such an interesting journey -- if those containers could only talk...!!! Hoping & praying with you that your container arrives sooner rather than later, intact, and with exactly what you need for ministry in Burundi!
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