As you are getting closer to departure, we want to remind of you some things about packing. Note that you will need the following items:
Cook stove (1 or 2 per team) .
Eating utensils including silverware, plate, mug, bowl.
Travel Well has lots of great packing advice – make sure you check this out.
Also, though it’s not a Christian site, http://www.ricksteves.com/ has a lot of travel info and tips.
If you have packing questions to ask of the ’06 Racers, please compile list of Q’s and e-mail to Serena by 11/16 – This Thursday!
This is packing information that Chad Mast sent in an e-mail to Stephanie, so we are passing on this great info. Thanks to Chad!!
I would recommend bringing a laptop especially if you are going to journal and do your blogs on it (Groups do share a lot but sometimes it gets really complicated when there are only a couple of laptops out there, especially towards the end of the trip). It saves you so much time to do your blogs on the computer and have the pics ready and on a flash drive when you get to the Internet cafe. I would assume we would have wireless maybe 5% of the time next year. A lot of times those spots are in connection cities or airports. (only a caution and I rebuke the enemy on this in Jesus name on this subject. 4 out of our 7 computers were stolen this year). You will need an external hard drive or flash discs, Cds or something to back up your stuff. When someone loses their computer with all of their pics on it, we need to learn from that.
Passport. You are going to almost need a completely empty passport. One suggestion is that you sometimes monitor where they stamp your pages because sometimes they just stamp anywhere on an empty page. When you need a visa they need a completely empty page. Some countries only stamp little stamps. Try and guide them. Anyways the moral of the story you need plenty of pages. You are a world traveler now.
Malaria Meds. I have malarone. I was told to get that one because of nightmares and going crazy on the others. I did have some side effects on malarone though. I got very sluggish and had some difficulties with my stomach/diarrhea. Needless to say they all are not cool. Being a missionary is sometimes not the easiest. I am sure you saw that when you saw the umpteen needles injected into your arm. LOL.
Tent. I do recommend that each person has a two person tent. The only thing wrong with that is that some campgrounds charge per tent and per person so that causes a little problem with the funds. I have my own two person tent which really is a one person. If people want to tent together and help with space, I would really recommend no more than a three person tent. Teams need to talk on this issue.
Things you need:
Headlamp,
There really shouldn’t be more than one copy of required reading books per team. They take up space and weight. Teams talk to each other on what books you are bringing. They get passed around like crazy.