We had to sell all our stuff, which was actually quite a bit. There were a few families before us who did a wonderful job at outfitting the place, and then as people would come they would often leave things. So in the end we ended up with quite a bit of stuff... for example... over 100 towels and 40 sheet sets! We made a listing of the big stuff (couches, refrigerators, etc.), that we sent out to other missionaries and nationals, and had two yard sales to sell the little things. It was craziness! Think of black Friday madness in your house! One guy who Hannah observed to have just picked up a basket of things without looking at them, came back days later complaining that the stuff did not work. We said we would refund him if he brought the things back, but he really just wanted us to give him a deal on a chain saw that was not actually for sale.
There is a book called "African Friends and Money Matters" by David Maranz which I highly recommend if you ever go to live in Africa. Unfortunately I actually read the book the last month I was there! I definitely wished I had read it the first month! This book describes a lot of the cultural differences between Africa and the Western world. One of the big differences is how you do yard sales. Actually to be accurate I'm not sure they actually do yard sales. But we learned that the way we did it was not the best way to go about it.
But in the end after we had it all sold and understood that we had not gone about it well, we had one person who was thankful because they normally did not get the chance to get stuff, but this time they did.
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