Just the Simple Things

     I am so glad to be here in Santo Domingo with Mike and Anna. It is a blessing to be able to spend time with such dedicated servants. On this trip, I am staying at their home and that is a new experience. All the other mission trips I have been on, I have stayed in a hotel. And even though you spend time with the missionary, it is not ALL the time. This trip has been different and I have had my eyes opened to a little more of what they deal with daily.

     In the United Stated we take so much for granted that you can't  count on here. Like your electricity working. When I arrived on Tuesday, Anna picked me up at the airport because Mike was home trying to get the electricity fixed. You see, using a blow-dryer and and iron at the same time blew it out.

     When I get ready to leave my house and go out, I press the electric garage door opener and am on my way. Mike and Anna have to unlock the gate with a key and move the iron gate across the front of their garage. Back the car out and then get out and replace and re-lock the gate. Every access to their home has to be secured. I believe Anna said there are 17 padlocks at their house to secure things ! Gee, I have one key to the door.

     When I want a glass of water at home,I turn on the tap. They have to buy jugs of water for drinking and to make ice. Washing the dishes means washing them, then rinsing them in a clorox water solution, then setting them out to dry, then wiping them down before putting them away. No automatic dishwasher here! And with three children, there are lots of dishes!

     There are police doing traffic stops daily, and we seem to get pulled often. Usually once they realize Mike is a pastor, they send us on our way. :) But that still means you are delayed getting to where you were headed.

     Then there are the challenges of simply living in a country where they don't think or reason like we do. For example, Anna took things to the copy shop to have printed for VBS. She took the brand new, unopened packs of colored paper and gave it to them to use for the covers. Later, Mike picked up the copies, and when we were putting the booklets together, found that we were 7 red covers short. They put a note saying they had messed the copies up, but instead of just replacing it from their matching stock, they left it. Now we need to make another trip to shop to get it fixed.

The t-shirts for the children at VBS were dropped off to the people to be printed. Because they were all grey shirts, but being printed with different colors, Anna and Mike had them sorted by size and how many they needed of each color. They bagged them and labeled each bag. Well, someone at the shop decided to dump them out of the bags into one big pile. Then, Friday afternoon, Mike and Anna had to go over to the shop and separate them again so they could be printed. They were supposed to be ready for pick-up Tuesday.

Yes, in the US we have things to deal with and frustrations, but it seems to be a regular occurrence here. The joke among the missionaries here is that if you accomplish only 3 things on your to-do list, it has been a GREAT day!

Oh, for things to be simple.