Things Go Awry

It’s been one of those crazy weeks when you wonder, “What next?” To start things off, a pregnant woman who had attended a special Sunday celebration on our farm last week was badly bitten several times by a croc by the river later that same afternoon. She is recovering. Then on Tuesday, one of our staff fell while using a ladder to put up our ceiling. He gashed his leg quite badly and of course with all the moving and rearranging here lately, it took me awhile to locate my disinfectant, 4X4’s and steri-strips to fix him up! Then yesterday, while I came down with (a mild case of) malaria, Dwight was robbed in town. That means several days of police reports, pursuing renewed ID documents, the works. Thankfully the credit cards were spared. Then today, another guy helping me paint the ceiling also fell while working on a ladder! :S Thankfully he wasn’t hurt, just a few dings on the floor and walls. Tonight I received an email from my mom saying she took a nasty tumble while sprinting across the yard to answer the phone the other day. She scraped both knees badly and dislocated her thumb (sorry, Mom). She also wrote that one of my aunts had fallen from a ladder and required stitches and injured her shoulder. And then there was the V Tech shooting that has dominated the news…where did this week come from…and could someone please make it go away?!

And yet when I think about it, some wonderful things have happened this week too. The guy with leprosy I mentioned quite a few entries ago has now been referred for treatment, has an interim home of his own and wears a smile on his face. Our little home now has its ceiling in and ¾ of it is beautifully painted…AND we moved OUT of the tent to sleep in our own room last night! Of course, there are a whole host of other good things to be thankful for, and we are. Going through difficulties isn’t all bad no matter how much we dislike the process. Tough times prove and strengthen our character, help us realize we can actually cope better than we thought, and mostly, remind us that God is with us and He is in control. After having said all that, I’m still hoping for a smoother ride week next week!

I better run along for now, there’s painting to finish and many other things to tend to. And when I climb the ladder today, I’ll make sure I stick to the lower rungs and move slowly :).

And since I like books with pictures and believe a blog post without a picture is like pie without cheese (who eats pie with cheese anyway?), here is at least one visual for you.

Early morning devotion and discussion time with mission staff (on this particular day we had visitors from Mercy Air, South Africa so there was not a spare log to be had to sit on). Maybe we need to add on :). TTYL.