We got married in Kansas and then went to Germany. By the middle of 1996, we were on our way back to Zaire. All our wedding gifts were packed in a container along with other people's things and left Europe not long after we did.
We arrived in Zaire in June or July 1996 and by November, the civil war had begun and we had to evacuate. Our gifts were in a container, in Uganda, waiting to be taken to Zaire. Eventually, we went to England to Bible school and our things, along with a few missionaries, went on to Zaire. Unfortunately, the civil war got worse again and the missionaries had to leave a 2nd time after only a few months. This time our things were there and most were looted. Through the years, we've heard of a few things that people have found with our names on them and once we even received an IGLOO water cooler and a study Bible, among a few other things. However, we had figured it was all lost and we were just glad we weren't lost with them.
For the past 3 ½ weeks, Roger was in Congo (as Zaire is now called...again) to do some training. He got to stay in a room in our house, the one we lived in for 6 days before evacuating. He returned last Saturday, with a red ActionPacker (very rare these days, so I knew it was something of ours) and told me he had a wedding gift in it. I opened it to find the mixer. It still had its packing foam around it and the plastic bowl guard was even unbroken. How it survived is beyond me. It is truly a gift since we never dreamed we'd see any of our things again! How exciting to actually be able to use one of our wedding gifts, 16 years later.
