Sometimes We Let Ourselves Down

So, about, I don’t know, a month ago maybe, Bill asked me to post something on the blog because it had been a while since we’d posted anything. And I said, “Sure.”  So, here I am, putting away my bon-bons and doing just what I said I’d do…

Since that time, we met up with Joseph and Rachel Weyel and their 4 children at the airport.  They have moved to Cambodia to work with an orphanage in Kompong Tom, and we followed their taxi-van up to Siem Reap to help them get settled.  They have met with one trial after another since arriving, and are currently in Thailand where their eldest daughter, 8 year-old Beth, is in the hospital with very serious and (to my knowledge) still not-completely-diagnosed health problems. Please pray for them. 

Our lives have been pretty low-key.  Bill and Daniel continue to work on translating 4 days per week.  They’ve put one book on hold to revise the 1689 London Baptist Confession that was previously translated.  They hope to make the wording more clear, and therefore, the book more widely useful.  Then on Friday and Saturday mornings he joins the students and other church members in evangelism. 

Katherine and I keep the home fires burning, as it were.  I have returned to the Flylady’s method of housework management.  I’m not as strict as I could be, but I try to embrace her advise to aim for “progress, not perfection.”  Which is really kind of a big deal for me. 

Katherine is making nice progress on learning to use the potty.  (If you had to wash cloth diapers by hand, I think you would take your 20 month-old to the potty 15 times a day, too.)  And we have just dealt with our first case of lice.  As if I needed any more reasons not to want to drop what I’m doing and sit in the back yard to supervise Katherine playing with the neighborhood children whenever they drop by.  I’m almost ready to insist on a washing machine. 

Katherine taking life in stride

I actually feel rather guilty about the neighborhood children issue.  Here they are: the dirty, neglected, third-world masses right on my doorstep (looking through my windows, actually).  And do I greet them with smiles and cookies?  No.  I either resign myself to not having the diapers washed in time to dry before it rains and try to seem nice on the outside, or tell them Katherine can’t play. 

So now I have to learn to love the children who have given Katherine lice (and will again; Bill said she can’t become the Bubble Girl), and be intentional about “making the most of every opportunity” with them.  How useless would it be it to move to a third-world country, deal with third-world issues, and yet not “be ready in season and out of season”?  And not proclaim Christ in exchange for every trial?

Jennifer