Through the Seasons

I have a sneaking suspicion that we won’t be settled in until our first furlough…

…in two years.

Good grief.

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Now that I’ve been taking care of Asher for almost 3 months I realize how much work a baby is.  He is totally dependent on me for everything.  For food.  For being cleaned.  For sleep.  For comfort.  For entertainment.  For learning.  And the more I’m with him throughout the days the more I think of orphanages around the world that are so overrun with children that the workers can’t properly tend to them.  You probably know the orphanages I’m talking about.

They have to prioritize food so the weakest, sickest end up not getting fed at all.  The healthy ones are sometimes strapped to chairs all day.  They get no attention.  I can’t imagine how Asher would be if all I did was feed him and nothing more.  I think he’d give up eventually.  He’d probably cry and cry and then at some point just stop. 

It breaks my heart.  I didn’t understand it fully when I heard the stories of those orphanages in the past but now I understand more and wish things would change.  But wishing doesn’t do any good does it.  Prayer does though.  I do pray for these children that their lives will be redeemed by the only One Who is able.  I pray they know the only Love that is pure.  I pray that the workers show compassion.  I pray that the countries change their laws.  I pray that the Lord leads us and enables us to make a difference, if not in those orphanages, in the world right around us.

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Once again our house is in shambles.  There is furniture on the front lawn (what I call the front and what Jonathan calls the back – but that’s a completely different story)…and baskets…and dishes…and everything else we bought from our neighbors.  Which means the furniture we’ve been borrowing has to come out so the new stuff can come in. 

But this is the last step and then we can finally make this place home.  I’ve been so excited to hang things on walls.  Of course I don’t have much to hang at this point but hope to eventually… and I want things from home instead of Africa.  My house just won’t be decorated with that safari theme.  I live in Africa but I’m from America.  I want my home to be somewhat of a sanctuary where I can be comfortable and remember the things I miss.  If I want something to remind of Africa I could simply walk outside.  But, again, I digress. 

I should probably take pictures of this, our final settling in.  If nothing else, once we get this accomlished I can continue my home tour for you.  It’s not much but it’s ours – well, temporarily anyway – and we’re happy here.

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Now we’re apart. 

Two years ago I quit my full-time job to begin training and preparing for the mission field.  Jonathan, of course, was doing the same thing so all this time we’ve been together practically every minute of every day working on the same things at the same time. 

But now he gets up and goes to work every day and I stay home.  Except a few times between jobs I haven’t been totally “at home” since before I was 16.  And I guess that doesn’t count because I was in school. 

It’s strange getting to the end of the day and not already knowing everything that happened to Jonathan.  He’ll come home now and tell me all these stories and I’m thinking, “Wow, I wasn’t there for any of that.”  So then I tell him my stories which I fear are not as exciting as his…  I put Asher down for a nap.  I read to him.  He pooped on me.  He pee’d on me.  He puked on me.  He slept.  He woke up.  But.  That is, in fact, my day and I’m grateful to be able to stay home with him.  I was rocking him to sleep last night and just studying the details of his features and I looked up at Jonathan and said, “I never thought I’d get this chance.”  I’m so, so thankful for him.

But, enough of the mushy stuff.  As much as I miss Jonathan during the day and wish we were still together a lot more, I’m so proud of him and what he’s doing here.  Hopefully he’ll blog soon about his projects and what all is in the works because it’s exciting stuff and the reason we’re here.  Outside of the work itself, we are interacting with more Tanzanians (the workers here and people in town) than we thought we would.  It’s frustrating for me because I still want to get the language perfect before speaking it but I’m risking my neck more and more by speaking more and more.  The only problem I have now is when people think I know the language and start talking really fast.  Oops.  “I’m sorry.  I gave you the wrong impression!”  Then there are other times that I just pretend I understand.  I did that with Mama Imanueli the other day and later realized I let her have two days off.  Hmmm…  Sometimes it pays to clarify what you’re talking about.

And as far as the office goes, they do need accounting help and have made that quite clear.  There is no pressure for me to help but I told the director that I would see what all is involved with month-end and if I think I can handle it I’ll help.  Once I agreed to do that, however, I was told there is a cash box system that has to be run certain hours 3 days a week and if I have time after all that there are other things I can help with.  I haven’t broken the news yet that my involvement will be minimal because Asher does take priority and a baby is quite demanding of your time really.  But I’ll do what I can, nothing more, and not feel guilty about it.  (Yes, folks, that would be a new leaf being turned over.  That is the second time this week I have refused feeling guilty for doing what is best for me and my family.  Go me.)

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This is one of the very few restaurants in town.  Despite its outward appearance it really does have good food.  At first I thought, “Chinese food in Africa?  No way!”  But it’s run by a Chinese couple so the food is authentic (but not too much so if you know what I mean).

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Uh-oh.  It’s starting again.  Dreams about food.  Last night it was cheese enchiladas and boy did they look good.  I didn’t get to eat them though because when I woke up I was still waiting for the waiter to bring my sour cream.  Aaahhhhh…  If I could have just fallen back to sleep and finished that dream.  At least I’m getting my favorite foods sometime. 

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I can’t believe I even thought it was possible.  I brought two 56 ounce bags of M-n-M’s with me.  The plan was to ration them to last 2 years until our return to the U.S.  That’s 7 pounds of M-n-M’s to last 2 short years.  Great. 

Not great!  Impossible!  I LOVE M-n-M’s.  I’m watching that first bag get emptier and emptier and I’m thinking I better start holding back now or I’m going to run out the first year!  Yikes! 

So anyone who would like to send something but you don’t know what to send – M-n-M’s!  (Oh and chocolate chip Soft Batch cookies.  Didn’t bring any of those with me – stupid, stupid, stupid.  )

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I was so excited to give Mama Imanueli her gift I almost didn’t greet her (a big no-no in this culture!).  We went through the greetings and I told her I had a gift for her.  I held it up to show her and could tell she didn’t know what it was.  I opened it and explained how you keep pictures in there.  Oh.  She was so happy.  She thanked me and hugged me and held my hand.  It was a bit awkward because we had a cross-cultural experience – making sure we were doing what was okay in the other’s culture.  It was great though and I’m happy that she now has a place to safely keep (and show off) her pictures.

A while later she came back to the door and asked to come in.  I told her to come on in but instead of opening the door as usual she said she needed my help.  Well, that’s odd.  So I went to the door and found that she had cut her hand washing dishes.  And she came to me for help.  Um.  I don’t do blood.  But I wouldn’t NOT help her so I grabbed my cell phone to call Jonathan.  No credit.  I picked up the home phone and realized I didn’t know how to use it.  So I emailed him a subject line “urgent” and a message “call me”.  I waited.  And waited.  Okay, so that’s not the quickest way to get help.

I asked her if she needed the landlord (who I later learned wasn’t here anyway) and she said, “I don’t know what to do.  I was scared so I ran over here for help.”  Yikes.  Talk about feeling inadequate.  I had her wash it off in filtered water then I put some Neosporin on it and a bandage.  Finally, Jonathan called and I told him what happened.  He literally ran home to look at it.  Sure enough, it needed stitches.  We couldn’t figure out the word for stitches when we were explaining what the doctor would do and then it hit us – he would “sew” it up.  We knew that word!  Ooo, she did too and said she was scared.

But off we went to the hospital.  We were in and out in no time.  She did, indeed, get stitches and some medicine for healing.  We paid for her expenses – a whopping $4.50 for the whole visit including the meds.  Crazy!  She thanked us over and over.  It was quite an experience and we were just glad we were here to be able to help.  Now I have to figure out what to have her do here tomorrow because she’ll do anything she’s asked but I know certain things wouldn’t be good for her hand.  Like washing dishes!

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I’m so weird about giving gifts.  I get embarrassed a lot of times when I receive gifts I guess because of the attention on me.  I don’t even get all that crazy about getting gifts.  So I wouldn’t say that’s my primary love language.  In fact, I don’t think it’s even in the top 3.  But I love, love, love (love, love, love) to give gifts.  I love to think of what would be something that person would really, really like and then somehow give them that one thing.  I want it to be thoughtful and really make them smile and know that I’ve paid attention to them specifically.

So yesterday Mama Imanueli came in and took out a battered envelope where she keeps her family’s pictures.  We went through them one by one and you could tell she was so proud of her husband and children. She has also asked us for pictures of ourselves so she must have a collection somewhere.  It hit me that she could really use a little photo album she could carry around with her.  Surely I have one to give her.

I was just leaving to spend the day with another stay-at-home mom in town so I looked through my things pretty quickly and didn’t see one.  Drats.  I asked a friend from home to send me one and then left.

Last night I was sitting at dinner and it hit me.  I DO have one!!  I ran into the back room and found it.  Soon, and I can hardly wait, Mama Imanueli will come by to get her apron (she’s working next door today) and I’ll get to give her the photo album.  I’m super excited.  I hope it’s something she can use!

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The truck made it.  We had to meet it where it broke down, get a different truck, unload the first into the second, then drive to our house to unload.  As we were settling in we started noticing missing items.  Uh-oh.  That’s right.  Not everything made it. 

And it’s not just that really.  We had an ordeal with the airline that I haven’t mentioned and don’t feel like talking about now either.  (But just for the record Northwest/KLM won’t get our business again if we can help it.)  We’ve contacted customer service numerous times and can get no help from them.

Then we get here and the driver of the truck lies to us multiple times and is generally difficult to work with.  The shipment was delayed over and over and we just got no help on it.  Then the truck breaks down and we have to get it here ourselves.  Just to find out it’s not all even here.

When we inquired about all this we were told there was also a break-in at the SIL office in Dar where some of our stuff was so some (but not all) could have been taken there.  The rest of the missing stuff was on the pallets we just shipped over so we have no idea at this point what happened to those things or where the problem lies.

I mean.  Are we being tested, taught, or tempted? 

But we’re doing much better now.  It’s just been a hard few weeks and I’m extremely glad they’re over.  We’re settled in much better than we have been yet.  I’m pretty much over losing some of my things (the sentimental, irreplaceable things were the most heartbreaking) and just ready to move forward.

As I hear Jonathan talk about his work I get excited (although I bet I’m not showing it through my fatigued expression).  I’m glad we’re here and honored to be able to help the people around us.  What is that saying about a bad apple spoiling the whole bunch?  Only if you let it.

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