Eleanor's Garden Baby Food Oct Update

This last month has once again been dominated by the relationship with our contractor. He is holding out for more money than specified in the contract, which is unfortunately not entirely clear on a couple of points. A series of threats to demolish the factory resulted in us losing some of our windows and front gate (for the third time). This time however we calmly called his bluff and he was increasingly frustrated by his inability to get workers to carry out his threats to either demolish the factory or dig up our driveway. Finally he arranged to have a truck load of gravel dumped in our gateway - even that came to nothing as, after a few words from our gate guard, the truck driver turned away and refused to dump most of his load. We have seen the Father's provision again and again, both through protection of the site and workers, and also from his daily guidance in how to deal with the situation. 

10 days ago, Michael realised that he had much more understanding of and sympathy for the Israelites. Time and again God came through for them in spectacular ways and led them. Then the next time we see them they are fretting, or, just as bad, trying to recreate old rescues without listening to God for what he wants to do this time.  I realised that this whole process is a privilege, the Father teaching us each day to stop and listen to him for his plans for the day - yes obviously we should always be doing this, but sadly sometimes it takes chaos to push us to it. May we always continue even when things are going smoothly. 

Since we wrote the first draft of this we had a mediated meeting with the contractor and came to a provisional agreement. It will involve an extra payment, but should get us all the paperwork we need to close the book on this - the final details are still being ironed out. It should free us up to start our long delayed testing and have our food production license inspection. We are still pursuing legal options in case this should fall through, but we would much rather not go this route as it will be expensive and unpredictable. 

In other news, Michael is due to be interviewed by a national TV crew for a series on life along the Silk Road. We are asking that this type of thing would be really positive in getting our name out there for marketing and promotional purposes. (The opportunity in part spun out of Sarah and Kim being filmed as extras in a local drama series!).

The delays have meant our finances are tight again - we had hoped that we would be in production with actual sales before needing further capital, but we haven't managed to last that long and we are unable to get the local loans we had hoped for until everything is settled with the contractor. Ask that we would have wisdom in sourcing these funds.

Once again many thanks for your thoughts.