Alligators, Customs and Stamps

While we were in America for Vacation and Visa Renewal (which was great and we got our new visas), we received a wonderful gift from the Lake Yale Baptist Encampment -- a large display case that is used in convention settings. It is a wonderful gift and a wonderful story of how we came to recieve the gift.

In the fall of 2006, Chris was manning "the company" booth at a state convention in Florida and his booth was right next to the Lake Yale booth. Intrestingly, Chris's Dad was at one time the assistant director of Lake Yale and Chris lived there for 1 1/2 years. While they were there, Chris's mom shot an alligator that was eating the director's ducks. Anyway, she thought that she shot it because it went belly up! Chris and his dad drag it back to the shore and his Dad begins to get ready to skin it and is looking for a bullet hole that he can not find. And all of a sudden, the alligator raises its head!!!!! Chris jumped a 3 foot fence in a single bound and his dad ran off as well. Apparently, this story is still floating around Lake Yale, because when Chris told Mr. Sawyer about who he was, Mr. Sawyer said, "Oh, yeah, your Mom was the one who shot the alligator!"

Chris commented on how nice the display was and Mr. Sawyer said that they were thinking about getting a new one in the next year or so. Chris asked what they were going to do with the old one -- they had no plans, so Chris mentioned that we could sure use it in Russia. So a few months ago, we got an email about the display and its availability.

We picked it up in Florida and brought it back up to Georgia. It was too big for Delta luggage requirements, so we ended up shipping it with the help of our company in VA via FinnAir.

Now, we have never picked up any cargo from the airport and assumend that we could just go by Finn Air, show our passport and walk away from the baggage claim in an hour or so -- not so.

The cargo got to Russia on the day I landed the 30 -- how convenient -- we got there at the cargo place at 6:05 -- they had just closed, so we drove all the way to Ivanovo.

Friday we received a call from our office that it was available to be picked up, they just needed a Telex from Finn Air stating Chris's Passport number. Not a problem.

Monday, everything is ready and we can go pick it up. We drive to Moscow 5 hours on wet, muddy roads. Chris drops Tracy and me off to run errands. About an hour later he calls -- he left his passport in Ivanovo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tracy and I return on a bus to Ivanovo, and Chris has a friend give his passport to a bus driver in Ivanovo and Chris meets the driver at the bus station last night to pick up his passport.

This morning he arrives at customs at 9:00 AM -- at 3:00 PM, he receives the cargo -- paying taxes at 3 or 4 different places and getting 18 different stamps from 18 different people!!!!!!

PTL, the cargo is on its way back to Ivanovo.