Wow, what a sale!

At the end of each sale we return with the leftover products to the warehouse. We check if each item is packaged in its original box. This job can take a greater part of a day for the two of us.

The coffee room doubles as a food packing and storage area. The "food products" that we take to each sale include coffee, tea, chocolate bars, hot chocolate, cocoa, rice, sugar and spices. Most of these food items come from Just Us Coffee Roasters in Wolfville, Nova Scotia.

Last weekend's sale (October 30) was hosted by Midland Baptist Church and our over-night billets were John and Bea.

This was a first ever sale for this community. Their bright and cheery new community center was an excellent facility for it.

The Baptist church ladies ran a "Cafe" at the Festival Sale selling breakfast, lunch, desserts and of course coffee. Because their community is rural and there is no Tim Horton's in the area the ladies run a Friday morning drive thru coffee at their church. This venture is extremely popular.

This church's pastor having been involved with Canadian Food Grains Bank got his members excited about supporting this cause. As part of this Festival Sale they also did a meat auction to raise funds in support of the Food Grains Bank. Through this Mennonite connection they became interested in being part of the fair trade concept of Ten Thousand Villages.

This one day sale turned out to be much busier than expected. The two checkout lineups continued all morning. We even had a group of Red Hat ladies come to check out the products in their Halloween attire.

We enjoyed watching the excitement of this group as they ran the sale with our help. They had 40+ volunteers in every aspect from setup to packup which made our job enjoyable.

Newfoundland (the rock)

It was Tuesday morning October 19 that we finally got on the MS Smallwood ferry to make our crossing to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland. The water was moderately choppy with approximately 10 foot waves. This time Jim tried taking ginger pills to help settle his stomach. It did make an improvement. The crossing was from 11:30 till 7:00, but we had to wait another hour because another ferry was still at the dock.


The next morning we started making our way across Newfoundland. Their Trans Canada Highway was mostly a two lane road, but with frequent passing lanes it was easy to drive. The scenery was fabulous with lots of colorful leaves still on the trees.

Our night stop was in Grand Falls, where we saw these amazing trees in their fall glory. We had thought Newfoundland had a harsher climate than Manitoba, but we were mistaken.

Jim had noticed that the rental truck we were driving shifted poorly right from the start, so in Gander he stopped to check the transmission fluid level and could not tell for sure if the dipstick touched the oil. After trying to find the fluid required as per the manual we finally found it at a Ford dealership. After adding 3 liters of oil it was showing on the dipstick. Ryder could not have checked out this truck beforehand.

We did arrive in St. John's without problems in the late afternoon in time to have supper with our billet's children and babysitter.

This festival sale did well considering it was at a new location. The St. Peter's Catholic Parish had a great building and a good group of volunteers to help us.

Our workday Friday started with set-up at 8 a.m. The sale ran from 1 to 7 p.m. On Saturday the sale was from 9 to 3 followed by pack-up.

It was wonderful to join Melody and Scott for supper after our busy day. Their children enjoyed having us there.

We started our return trip early Sunday morning. Melody supplied us with a great salad lunch for our long journey back to Port aux Basques. The 10 hour drive without cruise control made for a long day.

The GPS has been very helpful in cities, but had very few instructions to give on this 900 kilometer drive.

We arrived back at Port aux Basques Sunday evening for our Monday reservation on the ferry. Another overnight in North Sydney with a six hour drive on Tuesday finally got us back to Petitcodiac.

Starting at Ten Thousand Villages

Our arrival at Ten Thousand Villages, Petitcodiac brought back many memories. This building has the store, warehouse and two apartments on the second floor. The left window is our apartment window. We are blessed with a bright sunny kitchen. Our bedroom overlooks Main Street and we enjoy hearing the train as it passes by just a short distance away.

The first few days we had to familiarize ourselves to the functioning of the warehouse. They have a new Point of Sale computer program that we had to learn so that we can teach volunteers at sales how to use it.

Coffee time is always a good time to get to know each other. (Left-right) Bill (volunteer), Linda, Brian, Sarah (Leadership team), Florence (volunteer), Annette.

The truck is loaded with product and fixtures used to display our goods.

Jim was sent to pickup a rental truck in Moncton which we will be using for the next two months. This truck made it to the edge of Petitcodiac where it quit and needed to be towed. Thankfully we received a better replacement truck that we are now using.

Jim with his nearly loaded truck.

We are now ready to head off to our first sale in North Sydney NS (Cape Breton). This is a training sale for both volunteer couples, however we (Jim and Annette) are packed for the St. John's, NL sale October 22 & 23. We are waiting to get on the ferry as this is same community from which the ferry departs for Newfoundland.

The North Sydney festival sale located at the Calvary Baptist Church.

We are setup and ready for the sale to begin. It was great to work with local baptist church volunteers. We were impressed by their 84 year old co-ordinator's spunk. It was great to be recognized and meet two volunteers from our sale in Sydney six years ago.

We have a ferry reservation for a Tuesday departure. The ferry has had a back log due to a breakdown and bad weather. It will be just over a week till we get back and can fill you in on this leg of the journey.

Akron to Petitcodiac, NB

The leaves had changed color but the day was misty and cloudy and did not show off its glory as we had hoped to see.

Then we came upon this tranquil reflection scene along this peaceful river at a wayside park.

Jim heard some scraping noise from the van and stopped to check things out. Nothing was visible but as he shifted back into gear there was a jerk and grinding sound. We ended our day at a smaller community in Maine and called our mechanic back home. Upon his advice we continued our driving the next day using third gear instead of overdrive.

We took our van to be checked at a transmission shop in a nearby community.

Only after he dropped the pan did we realize the extent of the damage. Bits and pieces of roller bearings and gears were to be seen.

We drove all day from the western edge of Maine to our destination in New Brunswick. We think that our transmission was held together by prayers.

Travels to Akron, PA

No problems at customs as we crossed at Pembina, ND. The travels went well on the wide open interstates of North Dakota and Minnesota.

We enjoyed the early morning mist in the valleys of Wisconsin.

For a relaxing break in our second day of travels we visited the RV Musuem in Elkhart, IN. 2010 is the 100th anniversary of recreational vehicles.

After many miles of toll road, costing over $50 we arrived in Akron, Pennsylvania. This peaceful, rural photo is in sharp contrast to the bustle of all larger roads.

We were welcomed by sister-in-law, Mary at the MCC headquarters where she is volunteering. She toured us around the facilities and the countryside which we enjoyed very much.

At the Mennonite Disaster Service office we met numerous staff.

This is the new MDS office and warehouse which they plan to have completed in mid November.