the mjoli journals

What a crazy couple of weeks! After waiting for almost 10 weeks to get a car the Lord delivered in a big way. We shopped for and put a deposit down on a car the week we arrived in Kenya (June 7). Come to find out, a week or so before we arrived INTERPOL (This is the world’s largest international police organization. It facilitates cross-border police co-operation, and supports and assists all organizations, authorities and services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime.) cracked down in a huge way on stolen cars in Kenya. Apparently people in Japan would secretly sell their cars to dealers in Kenya, and then declare them stolen to their insurance companies. This would allow them a safe way to get rid of their cars and collect the insurance. Who’s gonna find a car from Japan in the middle of Africa, right??

Anyway, to make a long story short…there is now a huge amount of paperwork, checking and rechecking on both the dealer’s part and the part of the Japanese consulate to confirm that each imported car is not, in fact, stolen. Thus, the huge delay.

Finally the paperwork from the Japanese Consulate arrived, but not the “logbook” – Kenya’s equivalent to the title deed to the car. The dealer wanted us to pay to take delivery of the car even without the logbook. This, of course, is not the best option as the dealer could disappear overnight with all of the money we had put down on the car. So, more waiting…

Finally, just 4 days before the kids started school (when we NEEDED a way to get them to and from school) we called the dealer. He statement was that he was ready to trust us and he would give us the car with NO additional deposit until the logbook arrived. When it arrived we would pay him in full – nothing before that date! So we are currently driving around in a car that we have paid nothing for until the logbook comes!! Our God is so good – always working to increase our reliance on Him.