Change of plans

Sometimes life doesn’t go as expected. Covid hits, borders close, product availability is limited, and shipping goes through the roof. With each new blow, you take a few steps backward. 

Well that’s where we are. We have been working since July of 2019 to grow our business. It seems like just as we figure out one problem another comes at us. Add to that the difficulties personally with government lockdowns, church only by zoom for 14 months, and problems caused by our slow visa renewal.  Life has been pretty stressful. 

Many of you are aware that we were in lockdown from May until July. After we received the kids passports, Dennis took a trip to Ludhiana to help get the business working right. While there, it was determined that to make the company more effective, our family would need to move north where the factory was located. It wasn’t what we wanted. While the area would be fine, there isn’t any meetings for our church. We wanted to continue to have a place to worship. 

After much discussion and prayer, we decided that the last 18 months had provided us with the spiritual foundation to allow us to be successful in that situation. We wouldn’t be totally without a church. We would only be meeting virtually with other members over zoom in a mission branch. It’s created for members who live outside of normal church boundaries. While we love actually meeting with others, we had been meeting totally by zoom since March 2020 and could continue to do so. 

After we arrived at this decision and convinced the kids it would be a positive thing, we starting figuring out how to make it happen. We saved boxes to start packing and were figuring out how to ship our items. Dennis was planning to head back north shortly after a Nick’s mission departure to find us a house. We had looked at some online that we thought would work for us. 

Then at the beginning of October our plans changed again. With the high cost of shipping, it wasn’t feasible for our customers in the US to continue to purchase products. Other buyers from various countries were also having the same problems. When we came here, shipping costs were $1700/container. Right now they are $22500/container. While many figure prices will come down in the new year, the reality is that no one knows. Ships are backed up at the US ports. Companies are being charged ridiculous fees for their products to be held on a ship until they can be unload. Fees totalling over $250,000. Add that to the shipping fees and it doesn’t make sense to order over seas right now. 

With the prospect of limited orders for an indefinite amount of time, it was decided to close the business. Believe me when we say, that we are devastated. We have given up our jobs, sold our cars, house, and personal items, and taken a extremely small salary for the last year to make this work. We have grown to love the people, food and culture. There are some things that we won’t miss, but we thought we had 5 years here. We’ve barely scratched the surface on what we have experienced. With restrictions and lockdowns, we weren’t able to see many things even locally. 

This is not where we thought we would be, so we have to again decide what our family is going to do.