Looking at Plan B for supplies

I talked with Chris yesterday...she started the conversation with "Don't panic when I tell you this, but...", and I found out that all of our supplies that are on the shipping container are sitting at port in the U.S.....they haven't left yet....we have 59 days till we leave for Zambia! 

Hurray for 59 days till Zambia! A bit of an issue that our supplies haven't left the U.S. yet. We're thinking they will likely not make it in time, so we're starting on our Plan B. 

Plan B: ship internationally the resin (chemical that we need for laminating the prosthetic sockets) since that cannot go on the plane. We can compare shipping supplies vs doing extra baggage fees for our flights. This is not ideal, obviously, since it incurs more cost, but we need to have supplies there for sure. 

So, we're back to gathering supplies for our trip. I had taken several donations that had come in to Chris when we had our PPIHN board meeting including a few feet, liners and socks. Another interesting thing is that a rep from Otto Bock was at my office earlier this week and offered some donations of knees or feet for our mission work. I gave him a call to let him know our shipping container situation, so he's going to see about getting us some components. Yay! Chris will have to purchase more supplies also. 

Here's the big load of supplies that are on the container. Oh container, we pray you make it to Zambia in time. 

So I did find one small thing amusing, though we're a bit distraught that the container hasn't even left the U.S....last year, our crate had arrived on time with supplies and we had our extra bags on the flight with more supplies. (You can see in the picture above the plastic totes like we had last year as extra baggage on the plane). One of those totes was stolen in transport to the orphanage (read story here...scroll to the bottom of the post). On that tote was our pipe vises, which are equipment that fit into a vise for our prosthetic plaster model to fit in for modifying. So, we had bought two more pipe vises and put in the supplies on the shipping container this year. And now, it looks like we won't have pipe vises again to work with. Perhaps one day, we'll have pipe vises to use in Zambia. 

*Asking for prayers that the shipping container does make it to Zambia in time for our trip. Also, that preparations for our Plan B to make sure we do have the necessary supplies go smoothly.