WorldWide Drilling Resource

42 FEBRUARY 2016 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® Thursday morning November 12, 2015, brought good weather for loading the con- tainer in Bartholomew’s yard and shop in Spokane. The container was scheduled to be at the shop at 8 a.m. for loading, and by that time, ten or so men had gathered to do the hard work of loading the shipment to Guatemala. By 8, there was no word from the driver, so Gary called the trucking company. He was told there had been a delay getting a high-cube container, but they had secured one and would make sure it would be there at 8 a.m. the next day. There was nothing to be said or done about it. A quick poll revealed there would only be four or five men able to be there the next day. It was a good thing we had palletized and staged as much of the cargo as we had, but the delay was going make the loading much harder for the fewer number of men who could be there. Friday morning before 8, the driver called. He was within minutes of the shop and headed our way. The GPS is confused here, so Gary sent Frank Clark to meet him and guide him to the shop. The driver didn’t speak English very well, but he could drive the truck okay, and he backed up to the door. The loading took 3½ hours. Most of it was done by forklift to the back of the container and then with pallet jacks to the far end. By using a high-cube container, we can stack one pallet on top of another. We have several pallets of bentonite, a pallet of hand pumps, spools of wire cable, a large generator, 20 or so sticks of steel pipe casing, and crate after crate of medical equipment and supplies for the Government Hospital. One of our supporters had loaned us a pallet scale, so we were able to say with accuracy how much weight we were putting into the container. It has been guesswork before. At 11:30 a.m., the doors were shut and the paperwork about to be signed and exchanged. At that point the driver said he did not have a seal for the doors. They are for sale in truck stops, and every other time we had ever sent a container, the driver had the seal and sealed it in our presence with the numbers noted. Gary thought it wise to purchase a seal before sending the driver on his way with our supplies, so he guided the driver out to the freeway and got a seal. The cargo we had collected all year was on its way. I checked on the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) Web site and saw the container was gated into the dock on the 14th and was scheduled to be shipped on the Lisa , an MSC container vessel, on Wednesday the 18th. May the Good Lord watch over the shipment of material necessary to bring the blessing of clean water and better health to the people of rural Northeast Guatemala. If you would like to help, contact Gary Bartholomew at 509-466-5075 or 509-939-1941 Tim Tim Rasmussen may be contacted via e-mail to michele@worldwidedrillingresource.com Water for Life International by Tim Rasmussen