We, the Dieringer family, were assigned to a remote island in northern Vanuatu named Mota Lava. We visited in the summer of 2017 and after a 6 week stay in the village, meeting the translator family located here and after prayer, we decided to follow the Lord’s leading to be a Scripture Engagement team here.
In March of 2018, after my husband took a few scouting trips to secure a place for our family to live and after a plan or two fell through, we finally settled in a local style home where we live in a very outdoor, open setting.
We knew in 2017 that it would be important for our family to live in a western home with somewhat western conveniences to thrive for our long term plan, which is 10 years, in this community. The scouting trips my husband took also secured an agreement to renovate and extend an existing structure in one if the villages to make our long term home. That journey began in June of 2018 when Ian Walters of BuildAid Australia came to lead a crew of local workmen complete the shell of our home. We also had a volunteer team from Canada and our sending church in Hawaii. During the last week of work in July we ran out of materials and I accompanied the last of our 2 volunteers to the capital city for almost a week where they helped me sort through our housing items in storage that the Nie’s will be bringing up to Mota Lava for us (along with many other items we have requested and they have so graciously agreed to bring) and our volunteers worked on campus at SIL for 2 days.
Going back to Mota Lava, we anticipated the men might run out of work so in the third week of June, I went back to a nearby town for 2 nights just to order more building supplies in hopes that we would not run out. There are only 3 ships that regularly come to our island every 6-12 weeks and I paid for our materials to come through the ship that told me they would come the next week. Sure enough, the ship ended up going elsewhere first, came back to the town and then had engine problems. Every week for 3 weeks we were told they would leave in a day or two and could not get a straight answer. Finally the ship did leave for the northern islands and we found out through the hardware store after asking for the shipping docket that not everything made it on the ship. Important materials such as our 2, 10,000 liter rain tanks were not on the ship. Even though we paid in advance for these materials, the manager of the ship left the country the weekend before the ship left and did not communicate with the men loading the boat. When the hardware store went to load the materials, there was not enough room for what we had prepaid to be delivered.
It is the 3rd week of August and just last week half of our materials were delivered, but we are still waiting on roofing, timber, rain tanks and some plumbing. The shipping company told us and the hardware store they will come out this week, but we know that is extremely unlikely. Ian from BuildAid Australia, who is overseeing this project arrives this Saturday and will be staying for 1 month. If the rain tanks and other supplies do not come in a timely manner, it is likely that the house may not be able to be finished in this trip and he is unsure if he can come back to Mota Lava this year.
In the past, 5 pieces of treated timber and 5 pieces of cement have gone missing from our supplies.
We understand that these are part of the difficulties with living and working in another culture, but having an honest, straight -forward support in Vanuatu for missionaries would be a tremendous help not only for house building, but also for distributing Bibles, transporting groceries, helping in emergencies (evacuation from volcanic islands), etc. We are excited about the prospect of having a local transport that would be fast, safe, and clean for our family to use when needed!
Thank you for taking the time to read this email and what God is bringing us through,
Jamie Dieringer for the Dieringer Family