Happy New Year to all of you! We’ve taken a packing reprieve and are enjoying an evening together, while ushering in the new year. Packing has been in high gear, getting ready to load a truck which ought to be coming Tuesday, the 4th. I hope you all have some enjoyable family time together, and that you are giving thought to how you will serve God in this new year.
It’s Almost Time
For several months our family has been making plans to move to a completely new area of Tanzania. It has seemed like we would never actually move, but the time is almost here.
I accompanied George, along with Carey Samford, on a trip to Iringa, the town to which we are moving. We left Dec. 9 and drove all day. The trip took about 14 hours. We got a hotel and then first thing the next morning our house hunting began. Then the next day we house hunted again, and the next day, and the next. Our goal was to find two houses fairly close to each other. We looked at a number of houses and each of them had their own challenges. Finally, after a week of looking – mission accomplished! Late Thursday afternoon, Dec. 16th, we finished up business and not wanting to stay another night, we hit the road for home. We drove all night and got home Friday morning at 9 a.m. What a long night, but we were happy to be home!
Linz had breakfast waiting for us when we got home. I worked around the house – laundry, etc. No nap for me that day, so when night time came, I was ready to crash. Then just before 4:30 a.m. I got a text from my mom informing me of my grandmother’s death. After that I was not able to go back to sleep, so Saturday was a long day for me.
Since returning home, we’ve put our packing in high gear. We are planning to load a moving truck January 3 and then we’ll be making our way to Iringa. We aren’t sure how long it will take to get internet up and working, but hopefully only a few days. Once we arrive we’ll have a lot of scrubbing, etc. to do.
So, our adventures continue! Never a dull moment, so it seems. We’re going to have a few adjustments. There aren’t nearly as many products available in Iringa as are available here in Arusha.
But we are ready for new challenges and are excited about the fact that we are leaving Arusha traffic behind.
We ask for your prayers as we work through our move. George and I in particular are tired and we have many full days ahead.
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| Front of the House |
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| Back Yard |
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| More Back Yard |
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| Living Room |
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| Hall Bathroom – Bleach Anyone? |
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| Kitchen – No Cabinets! |
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| Dining Room |
Tuesday’s Tip
Not too long ago I wrote a blog about clutter. I’ve had to keep the topic in the forefront of my mind since we are in the process of reducing the number of our possessions before our move. Although I don’t think that I have a whole lot of knickknacks, I do have more – we all have more- than we really need, and so we are in the process of purging.
Think about how much “stuff” that you have accumulated. If the rust and dust were a testimony of your life – your habits, your stewardship, you priorities – what would they say? We get so used to our piles of stuff that they become invisible to us. Maybe it would be a good exercise to walk into each room of your house and consciously view it as if you were an outsider. What do you see?
Recently I came across this book: The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life.
As with many things, simply reading a book, no matter how great the ideas are that the author has to offer, is not a magic formula for life-changing transformations. We’ve got to motivate ourselves from simply thinking something is a great concept, to actually doing something about it.
How much more does this apply to God’s instruction book, the Bible? God has offered us the opportunity to enjoy a life-changing transformation, but simply reading about it won’t make it happen. How often do we read God’s Word or hear it presented through a motivating sermon and we think that we really want to do better at such and such? We all have areas in our lives that need some improvement. We know we need to do better, but in many cases our best intentions are forgotten by the next day. Somehow we’ve got to make the transition from thinking about it to actually doing it. We’ve got to want it badly enough to do something about it.
Don’t wait until January 1 to resolve to do better. Spend some time in self-evaluation. Evaluate how you can declutter and simplify your possessions. Doing so will give you freedom to concentrate on more important things in life. But more significantly, spend some time contemplating your life – your character. Be willing to lay aside anything that is hindering you from running your Christian race.
“Therefore let us also,
seeing we are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses,
lay aside every weight,
and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us”
Hebrews 12:1
Randomness
First of all, thanks to Linz for creating a new design for my blog. Thanks, Linz! Even though we are experiencing anything but winter weather (it’s technically summer here, although we are enjoying very mild temperatures), it is nice to think about the winter weather that our family and friends are experiencing this time of year; thus, the winter blog design. 🙂 We even had hot chocolate tonight, since it was a chilly 69 degrees.
The past week has been a bit unpredicatable…okay, more than a bit. Out of the last 8 days, yesterday was the only day in which our electricity stayed on most of the day, and even then it went off for a little while in the evening. It has been impossible to plan any household work which requires electricity. We do have a generator, but it is not designed to carry the household power load. I’ve really been working on not being so frustrated about the power, and when one task gets diverted because of no power, I try to simply go to another one that does not rely on power. I still have my moments, but I’m working on not being bothered. 🙂 In spite of all the inconvenience, we have much to be thankful for. Just to name a few:
- We’ve had more water these last several weeks.
- We are healthy.
- We’ve been safe from harm.
- We’ve been blessed with a well-stocked pantry, fridge and freezer.
- We have plenty of clothing.
- We know we have friends and family praying for us regularly.
So, if you ever get discouraged about things in life that are frustrating or even irritating, try to keep things in perspective, and remember all the good things that you’ve got going for you.
On to other things….we’ve been quite busy. ACSOP graduation was last Saturday, and I made a cake plus 63 (yes, I counted them) cupcakes. George and the boys have been trying to get a trailer fixed up and ready to use for our move. George and Jacob had a VERY long day today with a round trip to Nairobi. They left this morning at 1:45 a.m. and were home by about 3:30 this afternoon. I can’t believe they are still awake!
I’ve got a quilt in the quilting frame; one I’m working on for Linz. I’ve also got a quick project going of a quilted table runner. Today I roasted three chickens, cooked some stew meat, made a marinade and got some chicken legs soaking in that. I wiped down the front porch and our kitchen floor (on hands and knees, thank you very much). Tomorrow I’ll do some baking and figure out what I want to make with 3 kilos of ground beef (known as minced beef here). I’m trying to get a few extra things cooked up for the Samfords, who are arriving back home this weekend. I also need to cut up some green beans and get them in the freezer.
We ate supper outside this evening. It was very pleasant and it was early enough so that the skeeters weren’t a problem. That’s the first time we’ve done that in a long while, but we need to do it more often.
George and the boys, and hopefully Carey, will make a trip to Iringa next week, in order to look for housing. We’d love to get moved by the end of the year, though that is probably pushing it a bit. We’ll see what this trip unfolds before daring to make any time projections. Yet another opportunity to practice patience! 🙂
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!