Banking and other stuff in the Solomon Islands

We arrived in the Honiara, Solomon Islands on Wednesday October 28th.  We had been advised by the missionary department to only bring $100 each with us.  Well, we did not feel comfortable with that, so we cheated and brought more.  Thank goodness that we followed that prompting. 

Our mission President, Pres. and Sister Fata, were here until Monday when they flew back to Port Moresby.  We went the very next day, October 4th to the Australia and New Zealand Bank and applied for our account.  We were promised that our account would be open and we would have our ATM cards in about two weeks.  To make a long story short we got our account number on October 24th, but no one at the bank could figure out how to transfer money from the US to the Solomon Islands.  We made trip after trip to the ANZ bank trying to get information about the routing numbers and what US bank they worked through.  Meanwhile T.J. was at home trying everything he could figure out to get the money to us.  On October 28th with T.J.'s ingenuity and lots of prayer and a little information from ANZ, he wired us $100 as a test.  On November 1st we found out that it worked, wow, we were down to where it was getting scary and now we knew we could get our money from home.  The money had actually arrived the same day T.J. had wired it to us.

We still did not have our ATM cards but were promised that they would be here in about 2 weeks.  (sound familiar?)  Last Thursday while in the bank we asked if we could bank online.  We signed some forms and were told to check back in two or three days.  Today we went to the bank and asked if our ATM cards were in.  Wow, they were except they are both in Cheryle's name with two separate pin numbers.  The teller said she was sorry and if it was a problem I could reapply for mine.  We are always together so it really doesn't matter and I guess if we lose one we have a spare.  They also gave us a number to call about our internet banking and when we called we were told they would have to find our application and would call us back.  The great news is we can get money now and we don't have to worry any more about running out while we are here and we finally have a card that actually works at the ATM machine.



We're in the money now!!!