Since arriving in Swaziland I have been trying to buy a Sea Container to use for storage as we have nowhere to store AIM equipment and donations that are scattered around, stored at our homes.
I happened to mention, once again, to someone in Matshapa that I was looking for a container and he told me that Trans World Radio (TWR) had one that they had been trying to sell for over six months. Talk about lack of communication! Our AIM offices are in the TWR building in Manzini – we are their tenants! Once back at the office I contacted the resident engineer at TWR and he confirmed that they had a container for sale at the “Antenna Farm” situated 35kms from Manzini. The following day the two of use drove out to the farm and after a quick inspection of the container we became its new owners. This was the easy part!
The wooden structure that served as a kitchen at Ruby’s care point, one of the places where we are feeding children, was in the planning for upgrade early next year, but between the termites and the strong winds that we experienced during October the wooden structure was blown apart leaving the Gogo’s cooking for the children in the open. We decided that the newly acquired container would be ideal at the care point for the Gogo’s to use as a kitchen until the brick structure was built. Once again I am without storage!
I borrowed Pete Johnson, a missionary brother’s eight tonne truck and set out for the Antenna Farm to load the container destined for Ruby’s care point. People from TWR and AIM stood looking at the truck and the container on the ground behind it and asked a logical question, “How are we going to get that container onto this truck.” I replied, “Just give me a minute I am thinking.” Have you ever looked at what seemed an impossible situation, trying to come up with a plan while everyone around 
you is making statements to the effect that, “it is impossible” or “it cannot be done”? Very soon you start believing that there is ‘no way’. However, Philip 4:13 states that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
After a short walk around the property I found two long poles, we drilled holes through the end of each pole and secured them together with a length of threaded bar and straddled them up against the front of the container, I was getting strange looks and there was intense whispering going on behind my back. I could just imagine what was going on in their minds! I secured a chain around the two
poles where they met to help the threaded bar and hung a 3 tonne chain block on the chain. From there on it was simple, we lifted the one end of the container up into the air and reversed the truck as far in underneath it as it would go. Moved the poles with the lifting gear to the other end and lifted that end onto drums with heavy timber stacked on top of them. Back the poles went to the other end again and we lifted the container off the truck so that it could back-up to the drums and we let the container down onto the truck.
“How are we going to get it off the truck again”, everyone wanted to know as there was no place to load the poles, “I am thinking,” was my reply. The following morning I purchased a three meter length of galvanized 63mm diameter water pipe, loaded it into the
Combi and off we went back to TWR to escort the truck to Ruby’s care point. It is very difficult to find a flat piece of land in Swaziland especially around Manzini, it is like living in the centre of the valley of a 1000 hills! Ruby’s care point is situated on the side of a gently sloping hill, but sufficient for the container to want to slide off the side of the truck and go rolling down the hill as soon as it was unchained. 
So the Combi was secured with a length of chain to the container keeping it in place while we loosened the chains. In my minds eye I saw the container sliding off the truck and catapulting the Combi through the air like the small round stone out of David’s sling, but praise God it held! Using a High-Lift 4×4 jack we lifted the back of the container up and let it down again onto the drums packed with timber. We then lifted the front of the container up with the jack, just above the truck sufficient to get the pipe between it and the truck and let it down again. I told the driver to drive the truck forward very slowly while our Combi was still securing the container from falling off the side or moving forward off the drums. It rolled along the length of the truck body on the pipe until a small section was left on the truck. We jacked it up again and drove the truck out from under it, now the container was left standing almost 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the air with one end on the drums and the other end held up by the jacks. We hastily stacked building blocks under the jack end and lowered it onto the blocks. From here on it was simply a case of lowering it down gently little by little removing timber and blocks
out until it was safely down on the ground.
Once it was leveled, the Gogo’s excitedly moved their cooking pots and food into the container, no more carrying everything long distances every day.
All the glory goes to the Lord Jesus for not just blessing us with the container, but also for giving us the strategy and wisdom to move it from the TWR Antenna Farm where it has served the kingdom as a storage facility for many years to the new site where it is now being used to feed hungry children out of. Praise God for His goodness and abundant provision!
Colin Cotterrell
13-11-2007
