Money is essential to live on

For those of you who aren't aware money is essential to live on. I found out last week that I have actually $160 a month to live on. Half of the support I was expecting, hit a snag and has to be untied. "Faith is the substance of thing hoped for the evidence of things not seen." Thank God for that. I can't see the support so I hoping for the evidence of things not seen. Beyond that, God has provided for me, every time. I remember once in Ghana I was completely out of money and my Grandfather had decided to mail me a birthday card with a $20 in it. I am amazed it actually made it through the mail. Bottom line, I live, and serve God through other people's generosity. I can never take that for granted. God inspires people to give and He provides for the people that serve Him. I have never gone without. God opens new roads all the time to provide for the work of the Kingdom of God. I look for those roads and follow them.

Today, I felt sick and I had a tooth ache. I thought to myself, what will I do without insurance? Then I thought, I'll do what I have always done. As an adult living and working overseas I have taken every advantage the US Government provides for low income, US citizens. The only health insurance I could afford while working overseas provided for emergency health care needs, not the every day colds, cavities and pap smears.

In the end though, God always provides. Do not fret and worry over little things, ask God for help.

U Haul Baby!!!

U Haul really means, have fun with that or pay us to move you! Moving overseas means packing up your life, or having the where withall to actually buy and own your own home with a care taker in charge. I did not have that where with all and am a still a renter. Which means moving all of my stuff to my Mother's basement when I move back oveseas. When I was 21, moving to Ghana this was not a problem. I didn't have anything. Now I am 31 and have way too much stuff. I have spent the last six weeks depositing my life into boxes that will not acutally be opened until I turn the key to my own home. An added bonus my Mother has a huge clean, dry basement. When I went to my parent's home during the Thanksgiving holiday, feeling very guilty for knowing I was going to dump all my stuff in her basement in three months decided to clean it out for her. Ten hours later and 8 calls to the Salvation Army about picking stuff up, the basement was clean.

How to pack is really the dilema. My room now has one corner for what's going to Senegal, which will be edited after there is nothing left in my room to look at and EVERYTHING ELSE I OWN is assigned to boxes. The bigger questions were what do I keep and what do I give away. Do I need the feather boa? Is the cowboy hat going to serve some purpose in my future? How do I label these boxes? What I might need in the near future? What will I never need until I have my own home? In the end everything ended up sort of in labeled boxes.

Friday 2/23 is the actual move. I pray all goes well.

Selling A Car

Most of us sell a car when we actually have another car to drive. I am however selling a car so that I can live out "these flip flops were made for walking." When moving overseas if you are selling your car be prepared that the buyer actually wants the car when he calls and says he will buy it. I am thankful that the guy buying my car actually said I will take it when you are ready to leave. Now, that is not normally going to happen. I'm a lucky girl. In the next week comes the challenge of transferring ownership of my friendly car to a friend who lives across the street. I hope he is as satisfied with my vehicle as I have been.

Computers

Onto the next thing, my computer. I purchased a new computer in the fall for my journey to Senegal. We decided lap tops weren't a good option because the fans in the hot climate are too small, lap tops live a short life in the third world. I had a lap top in Ghana that actually never really had a lift off. It was broken 90% of the time. I do remember one day when I saw an actual web cast of my friends partying. Then the lap top died. I guess my friends were too much for the little thing.

My friend Lou installed Linux on my machine because viruses are rampant in the third world, and everyone wants to dump on Microsoft machines, but nobody care about Linux. Thankfully. So I had to brave the new independent world of Linux. Through my new journey into the Linux world I have learned about Microsoft's ruler ship over the computer world. I had to find an MP3 player that worked in Linux. Then had to figure out why all my music on the new machine wouldn't actually play on the MP3 player, coming to the conclusion after much soul searching that they were ogg files not mp3 files. Arghghghgh. This has been a frustrating experience for me.

After having loaded all my music and collecting dvd's to entertain me in the nether regions of the third world, remembered that my speakers plug into the wall in America and would not plug into the wall in Senegal. Problem solved by getting speakers that plug only into the usb port of my computer.

There are other challenges that await me in the computer world I am sure. For now I am taking things one step at a time.

All of this reminding me to search every nook and cranny of my mind for the smallest things I am forgetting. Obvious things like plugs.

Before you go test things out

If you are planning on moving overseas, my suggestion is make a list a year in advance of things that need to get accomplished. Honestly, over the last two weeks lots of little things have emerged that took a lot longer than I thought.

Power of Attorney and Health Care Proxy - Make sure you have a power of attorney set in place before you leave with all of your financial institutions. My investments are through Ameriprise Financial Services. At first, they sounded like they needed a special kind of power of attorney. Called Uncle Don, the lawyer, to understand different kinds of powers of attorney. Ameriprise clarified what they actually need. I spent three hours with my investment firm the other day setting everything up for while I am gone.

The retirement rollover from my job did not go as planned either. They need power of attorney or gave me the option of calling from Ossouye to roll over my investments. I was like, this is a village lady, the phone might not be working for two weeks, but I did receive the number that I can make a collect call to, to roll over investments. So the legal department at United Technologies has to approve my power of attorney and then Fidelity has to approve the power of attorney. And again, nothing works easily or as you planned.

Taxes

Here's a tax tip if you are planning to move overseas. I visited my tax guy the other day and told him I was moving to Oussouye Senegal in March. I asked him what I needed to do in the following year to prepare for 2007 taxes. He pulled out his giant tax book and looked up Senegal. If you are living abroad all of your expenses generated in order for you to work overseas are deductible if under a certain daily allowance. Rent, Car, Travel, Food, Supplies. I cannot spend over $150 a day on housing and $60 on food. I think that will not be a problem in Senegal. Most Senegalese don't make that much in a month.