"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
I had been researching and looking for a transport company for two months prior to our moving from the UK to Turkey. After having a few quotes and reading between the lines I realised that the transport companies were all concealing in their quote the various Turkish port and customs handling fees. As a result I grew more and more confused and suspicious as to what our final payment would actually entail. The confusion increased once they all presented us with copious documentation, insurance, minutely detailed customs list, etc. This was all beginning to overwhelm us both.
We realized we had to find a different solution. My husband suddenly remembered meeting a young Turkish student in one of his seminars in recent months. He promptly e-mailed her asking if she knew of any Turkish transport company operating from England. A couple of days later there came a reply with a list of Turkish providers. There was one particular name, Mustafa, circled in yellow, as a recommended choice that caught our attention. When we rang him we were pleasantly surprised at his helpful and honest attitude. It turned out that Mustafa was just a 'man with a van', not a fancy transport company that we were dealing with until then.
A few days later he came round to assess the type of goods for transport and explained how he handled his cargo. It was straightforward and easy; we would pay by weight, each pack would be marked with our customer number, etc...... 'What about the border and customs, the lists, documentation?' we asked tentatively, expecting the news to roll out now. But we were in for a big surprise.
- 'Don't worry I take care of everything. You don't have to make any lists, there isn't any documentation, you just tell me what you are taking with you and I make sure that you get it in Turkey. My only advice would be not to take anything electrical, because they don't like it at the border. And really, don't worry. I have my ways of getting personal belongings through customs without any bureaucracy.'
Mustafa's assurance was like music to our ears. At last here was somebody that talked in a straightforward way and offered simple solutions to overcomplicated procedures. But then, just for second, I had a fleeting thought 'but what if we give all our belongings to an unknown man and we never see him again'..... but I quickly dispelled it and decided that in our situation there wasn't any room for distrust and just to put my mind at rest I rang few of his previous customers to
check him out .... All went well and we finally made our decision. Mustafa would be our man.
And just as he promised, two weeks after our arrival in Ankara a van with all our stuff reached its destination without any problems or hiccups. We both thanked God from the bottom of our hearts for sending the angel lady to my husband's seminar who helped us find Mustafa, the 'man with a van'.