Yuuuup

Saturday was an auction at the US embassy warehouse.  Oscar got wind via his subscription to the local paper.  We checked out the lots (over 250) during the week, and went to work on Saturday, arriving before 9:00AM. 

 

Oscar went mostly to bid on some things for the family and things he thought he could resell if the price was right (including a Ford Explorer...this was primarily an auction of domestic goods, their vehicle heavy auction will be later this year.) 

 

I went strictly representing the mission.  We went to one the year before but unprepared/unresearched, and bought nothing.

 

Let us see what we can gleam from this picture?

1.  Food was for sale...this went on for almost six hours

2.  Oscar and his dad were there

3.  Several tents were used to keep us out of the wind....well mostly.  The wind kicked up so much that several times it seemed it was going to pick everything up and carry it away.

4.  There were quite a few folks there!

5.  No reality show buying folks were there...not even former such folks like Dave Hester.  Oh well.

 

We may not have bought last time...but this time I spent quite a bit of mission money, hopefully...prayerfully...in a wise manner.  I was eyeing more...but prices on some things got out of control.   So what did we get between the two trucks?  Some items are for the clinic and mission house (our washing machines there are in different states of possible disrepair for example) and some is for the future souvenir store we will be opening on the SFC. 

Total haul:
1.  Three washers (clinic/mission house...possibly sell one?)
2.  One dryer (clinic/mission house)
3.  Four microwaves (clinic/mission house/souvenir store)
4.  Ten nice trashcans (clinic)
5.  Bookshelves (souvenir store)
6.  Modular metal/glass storage (souvenir store)
7.  Fridge and freezer (souvenir store)

 Some items are used...some hardly look used.  Hopefully all work well.  Our total bill was about $1,500.  To get nice name brand appliances like that though here otherwise...could easily cost three times that or more.  Getting donated items from the US is great...when we can get them, but most of these items do not come often, let alone having to deal with transport here, etc. 

The really amazing thing to me was how much stuff the embassy had to auction....we bought just a few lots...there were over 250, some items you can feel safe knowing the government got all the good possible out of before it was time to auction...others appeared brand new and not needing to be traded out (at least ten nice TV entertainment centers)

To be sure we will be keeping an eye out for more such auctions in the future!