Our Day Off

I wish there was some way to share our entire experience here on this blog, but in order to do that, I would need to include jolts from bumping along stone roads, the constant buzzing of mosquitoes, the sweet, smokey smell that is constantly lingering in the air from people burning their garbage or trees or who knows what else, the sound of car horns constantly beeping at each other, the tinny sound of loudspeakers from the trucks that go up and down the streets advertising their load of goods to the neighborhoods, etc. It's just not possible to share the entire experience because a blog is so terribly one-dimensional. Unless you've been here, you can't even begin to really identify with the some of the things that I describe, but I'll try to do my best.

Last night we had a prayer meeting for the missionaries. They have one every Monday night to keep in touch with the other missionaries here, and last night we were included. When we shared our prayer requests with each other, at first everyone teased me about mine, but I'm thankful that they did pray for me specifically. My request was that I would be able to let go of my need for control and just let God take over.

Because I don't know the language, I feel out of control. Because I don't have a vehicle, I feel out of control. Because we are changing our daily schedules to adapt to the culture, I feel out of control. Because this isn't my house or my kitchen, I feel out of control. I could go on, but that gives you enough of an idea of how I'm struggling with this. I have mentioned before that I like predictability. I like to know what's going to happen and when and how and what details are involved in between, etc, but my life right now has very little predictability and I am having a hard time just letting go.

I think that as a mother, this is what is most frustrating. I don't know how to prepare my kids for certain things, either, because I am not in control of what's going on around here. I'm feeling stretched there as well, because I feel I need a certain amount of control over them and when our lives keep shifting here, I feel like instead of being an ice skater just gliding to the next move, I'm more like a luge driver that is sliding off an icy track. (What a silly analogy since it is nowhere NEAR cold enough to even think of ice around here!!)

Nancy has been good at encouraging me to see that this may be God's reason for having me here ... to learn how to lose control! My prayer is that I will just let things go and not worry about those things that God is already taking care of, like my kids and our health and safety and our communications with the students and everything else that I am trying to control. I need to be able to just rest in Him and let Him do what He does best ... CONTROL!