Who out there is up for a challenge? Side not: the only people who would do this for fun…there is something wrong with you!!
In my last post, I briefly talked about supply buying for our bush orientation. It was kind of a big deal, so I thought that it needed a whole post of its own!
We are in one town (point a). The grocery store where the pilot is is either a 7 hour drive, or a 30 minute plane ride away (point b). The bush location is a 30-minute plane ride from that town (point c). So…I need to order groceries from point “b” and have them shipped to point “c”. I don’t really know point “b”; like what kind of food do they have there? I don’t really know anything about point “c”; like what meals will we need for a month? What can we get out in the tribal markets there? Etc. So I want you to feel my pain! My mission was to plan one month of meals, figure out what all ingredients go into those meals, categorize those items into an excel spreadsheet, and then email them to a supply buyer! Whew! I have never done anything like this before…so you can sense my “excitement!”
Here’s how I did it. Through advice of many, I planned meals for 2 weeks, and then doubled it. We have certain nights that stay the same like “Taco Tuesday”, “Pizza Friday”, “Pancake Saturday”, “Sunday morning quiche” and “Spaghetti Sunday”; so those occur every week (multiply ingred. By 4-Yes!) Now I had to fill in those gap for days I didn’t have a cute saying! I came up with “Soups Wednesday” (rotating same soup every other week), “Asian Monday”, and “Roll up Thursday”. This helped for dinners.
I’ll try to cut to the chase. This took me forevvvvvvvver to do! I had to figure out breakfasts and lunches. How many pieces of bread will all five of us eat for the month: 120 pieces! That’s too many…we don’t have the freezer room for that! So I will have to make bread at least once…what ingredients do I need to make bread?! Mark that down! How many grams of peanut butter will my family consume during this month? How much salt, sugar, oil, etc. will I need?! This is no easy job.
After working on this for a week, I think I finally got it all done on my end! I emailed the order in. A tribal supply buyer bought all of our stuff (I hope) and put it on a plane yesterday. I won’t have any idea if they got everything that I wanted before I get there. I am trusting them and the Lord! This is a great “game” I’m getting to play to practice for when we live in the bush.
And like I said, “We may be eating a lot of sweet potatoes!” So…who’s up for the challenge?!
Lulu says
I cant even plan one meal for one week, so good job! Frozen dinners and smoothies are my forte!
Miss you and love you guys, talk to you in a few weeks 😉
Becky Jaworski says
Wow, you are amazing. I tried to make baked Zita the other night and still had Gary run for ingredients that I forgot—I cannot imagine trying to plan that far ahead==Thinking of you all and keeping you in our prayers===lots of love=Becky