A Bad Day in Africa

I have to admit—I don’t like Africa today. The past 24 hours have not been good for me. So I’m going to vent.

Yesterday afternoon I went to wash the dishes, but there was only a trickle of water coming out of the kitchen faucet. No big deal, I thought. We have water pressure issues all the time. There was water in the rest of the house, and the kitchen water should come back by the evening, or tomorrow morning at the latest. We’ve got plenty of drinking water already filtered, so we’re good.

The power was off all day, which, again, isn’t unusual. We have back-up batteries to run a few lights and for charging computers and phones. This is totally do-able, too.

I went to Bible study later in the afternoon, taking two pans of homemade brownies, since I was in charge of snacks this week. When I got there, I cut into the brownies, which were perfectly fudgy and gooey… and also firmly cemented into the pans. How on earth is it possible for brownies to be perfectly cooked and still not come out of the pans??? I still don’t get it. My friend Cathy helped me dig the brownies out and put them on plates. But seriously-- why?!

Kelli and I got home from Bible study to find that we still had no power and no water. Arggh! I set out to make my amazing corn chowder for dinner in the dark (the batteries don’t run the kitchen light), using the only 2 clean pots left in the house—since we can’t wash dishes, since we have no water. I started sautéing the onion too early and scorched the pot. Lovely. About this time I tracked down our night guard to check on the water in our 1000-liter reserve tank… and found out that it was empty. Evidently, the water pressure from town had been too low to push the water up to the second-story tank for the past couple of days, so we had been using water and the tank wasn’t refilling. Now none of the pipes in the house had any water. No toilets, no sinks, no nothing. Great.

(We do have a 2000-liter rain tank outside that we can use for washing, mopping, etc., but we have to draw the water outside and bring it in by the bucket. And it was dark and mosquito-friendly outside by this time. And my mood was already sour.)

I came back inside and realized that my soup had started boiling too high and was scorching. Fabulous. I turned the eye down as low as it would go and stir… no major damage done, just another frustration in a series. When the soup was ready, Kelli and I sat down to watch a couple of episodes of How I Met Your Mother before we put in the Harry Potter DVD we borrowed from Cathy. But when we put the disc in the DVD player, it wouldn’t read the disc. It worked the night before with no problems… but it is a pirated disc (don’t turn me in, please!), so maybe that’s the issue. We put it into Kelli’s laptop, and it work just fine. Some much-needed smart humor came our way… praise the Lord!

After How I Met Your Mother, it was time for Harry. I put the disc in, and the DVD player wouldn’t read it, either. Now, we knew this disc worked. But not in our DVD player. Which we just got last month. After 10 minutes of trying, unsuccessfully, to get the DVD player to work, I finally just gave up. I sat down with a book and a brownie to try to make things better. Surely, some chocolate will help.

A few minutes later, we hear someone at the gate. The visitor, a friend’s watchman bringing something by, was knocking, and the dogs were barking like crazy. We heard them… but the watchman didn’t. For five full minutes. Finally, Kelli went out to answer the gate, since Godfrey obviously had no intention of doing so. As soon as she walked out the door, I dropped my pen—my nice, American, great-writing pen—and the end broke off.

Fine. I quit. I’m going to bed.

I got up this morning and there was still no water. (On the bright side, power was back.) We still had plenty of filtered drinking water, so I made some caramel coffee and finished off the last of the brownies for breakfast.

Finally, the water tank started to fill, and my supervisor offered to let us take showers at their place across the street. Jesca came to wash the dishes, make tortillas for tacos tonight, and clean the house. And I got to shave my legs.

I hate that my frame of mind is so determined by what’s going on around me. And honestly, none of these things was really that big a deal. But put them together, and pile on a bit of homesickness, and you get a really bad day in Africa.

But it doesn’t matter how bad my day is. It doesn’t matter how many things don’t work out, or how long the dogs bark. Regardless of the bad day I’m having, God is still good. His goodness isn’t determined by my circumstances. Even when I’m in a funk and forget that He is good, it doesn’t change the fact that He is. Or the fact that He, for whatever reason, wants me to be here. And I want to please Him… so here I am.

Tomorrow will be better, because His mercies are new every morning. And I’m going to the pool.

Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

James 1:16-17

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
2 Corinthians 4:17-18

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in Him.”
Lamentations 3:22-24