Unloading Ideas

We have received some news from David Kellum. They are still working on how to go about unloading the container when it arrives. There is no update on the container and/or ship's location. Here is David's message:

"Greetings to all of you . We are doing fine and being cared for very well. Dick should be home by now. We hope he had a good trip .

We have not had any new news of the container, but the doctor went to town this week end so he will check on it at SODETRA on Monday.

On Wednesday we heard that the Catholic mission about five miles from here had received a 40 ft container so we went to see how they unloaded it. The Italian father was not there, but he would be back in the afternoon. They did show us where they unloaded the container. They had built a special rig with six legs out of I beams and cross pieces with a roof over it. It was mounted on cement pads. They had hand operated chain winches, one could be moved for unloading either a 20 or 40 ft container. They backed the truck under it and unloaded in ten minutes. Before they had the rig set up they had used four large screw jacks for unloading. We returned in the afternoon and met the Italian father who was in charge of it. He was very kind and showed us around. We asked him about the jacks and he had only one of them. Two of the jacks were at another Catholic mission and he did not know where the other one was. He offered to let us use his rig and unload there, but we did not know how we would get the container to Kibimba.

The Catholic father asked the doctor if he was the doctor at Kibimba and Elisee told him, yes he was, then he said I have two hospital beds that just arrived in this container. When we went back to get the beds they gave them four beds with the possiblity of 20 more. They also, gave them several boxes of medicine. We hauled the beds to the hospital on Friday.

We do not know how we are going to unload the container but we are working on it. The doctor will check with SODERTA to see if they know anyone that can unload a full container .

Tuesday we plan to meet with the governor and see if he will contact the French Road Company who is building the road between Gitega and Muhinga and see if we can borrow their crane.

They are continuing to work on the area at the hospital where the container will set. We hope we will be ready for it when it arrives.

We continue to Praise God for His help with this project. Keep praying for us :

David and the rest of the gang"