“Let Nothing You Dismay”

Yesterday was my third Christmas away from home.

The first was awful! I had just arrived in Guinea on December 6, 2007; three weeks later it was Christmas. I didn’t have a cell phone and Skype wasn’t a thing that the average person knew about. On Christmas Eve a fellow Volunteer allowed me to use his expensive satellite phone to call my family. It was heart wrenching; I cried…a lot. On Christmas morning my host family gave me a warm bottle of coke. Merry Christmas.

Christmas Day in Mali 2008

The second Christmas of my Peace Corps service was a little less terrible. I was traveling with five other Volunteers in Mali. We were out of cell phone service so I couldn’t even call home. But that fine by me. I just didn’t think about home at all. We traded Secret Santa gifts, sang a few Christmas carols and hiked through the boonies of West Africa.

This year when I learned that I would be coming to the islands in November my very first thought was, “That’s right before Christmas!” Secondarily I thought of also missing Thanksgiving and all but my dad’s birthday. My entire family has birthdays from October 27^th-January 27^th– all seven of us. And I love birthdays.

I did not think this would be an easy or fun season. Being on a team with only one other single means that most of my teammates have some of their family already here, a built in support system. That added another layer of worry. I didn’t want to be left out.

It began on Saturday. It was English Club at my team leaders’ house. They wrote an entire post about this one night which I recommend reading as well at tmislands.blogspot.com. As I was not the organizer of the event, I thought it went splendidly. (You can read their assessment, which is a bit more dour). I spent much of Saturday baking brownies in my Dutch Oven. (Basically, it’s a big pot with a small pot inside- it allows me to bake despite not actually having a real oven). Megan had made cookies and popcorn that we distributed onto paper plates with the brownies to give to all attendees. As islanders do not celebrate Christmas, we spent the evening talking about the difference between secular and religious Christmas; who/what is Santa Claus; what are stockings; what is mistletoe, etc. We then sang some easy Christmas carols like “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Jingle Bells”. Finally we passed out the plates of goodies and drank Coke and Fanta. Seeing the excitement of some of the islanders to share in our traditions, I became excited too and began looking forward to the next couple days.

Sunday and Monday flew by with preparations- shopping for ingredients, shopping for presents, peeling fruit, chopping onions and kneading dough. Christmas Eve found me in my tiny kitchen all day. I made mango and lychee jam to give as presents to my island friends. I made four more batches of brownies. I made curried pasta salad. I made ricotta cheese and lasagna noodles- from scratch. And all the while, I sang Christmas songs at the top of my lungs with a full heart to an empty house.

The donkey taking Mary to Bethlehem

That evening I once again headed to my leaders’ home where I met up with the rest of the team after their long days of baking. We sang Christmas carols together and the children re-enacted the Christmas story to the amusement of all involved. We ended the evening at another teammate’s home with tacos- a family tradition for him.

I awoke Christmas morning with only gladness. I felt like I was waking up at home surrounded by people who love me, which, in reality, I was. I immediately went to the kitchen and began more cooking for the day to come. I started chopping onions and soon I was tearing up. Then it happened. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” began playing on my iPod. And I lost it. But just for a minute. I quickly recovered and by the time Melissa showed up to help me carry things to her house I was quite composed and happy.

Since islanders do not celebrate Christmas, as I have already mentioned, I made up my own Christmas greeting in the local language, which roughly translates as “Good Christmas”.  I left the house with my jam and delivered it to my neighbors with cheers of “Good Christmas!” to everyone I passed. I also gave Aisha a stocking with her name on it filled with candy. It was so great to give neighbors their very first Christmas gift ever!

Lasagna!

For breakfast, Abby made cinnamon rolls- a tradition in her family. With Melissa’s help, I put together my couldn’t-be-more-made-from-scratch lasagna. Eventually, we moseyed back over to Tom and Megan’s house where our teammates eagerly awaited our arrival so we could begin the feast. The spread was quite an amazing feat considering our context. The creativity of my teammates and their hard work was commendable. We had leg of lamp, croquettes (chicken balls- another teammate’s family tradition), sweet potato casserole, potato salad, pasta salad, cookies, brownies, truffles, pineapple dessert and so on. The fifteen of us did not even put a dent in the food!

My Secret Santa with her gift

Following lunch we exchanged our Secret Santa gifts. I received a beautiful black purse, a shawl and a bottle of strawberry milk- which is one of my favorite things to drink here (though I wouldn’t touch milk with a 10 foot pole in the states). After gifts, I was able to FaceTime with my family. Though they did not wait for me to call in order to open presents, which they were supposed to…it was still such an incredible gift to see their faces and hear their voices on Christmas.

My teammates and I spent the afternoon playing games like Apples to Apples and Dutch Blitz and grazing non-stop on the feast. We ended the evening watching The Grinch and Home Alone.

 

They come from five different states and three countries. They can speak six different languages. They come from five denominations. They have their quarks and oddities. But they are my family. How blessed I am to have a team.

I could not have asked for a better Christmas…

 

Well, one thing. Our toilet is still broken- that would have been an awesome Christmas present.

An Unfinished Story

It’s nice to have a conclusion at the end of a story. I’ve been putting off writing this post because this story hasn’t reached its conclusion, but then I thought, maybe that’s the point?

So it begins one week ago. I noticed the toilet wasn’t flushing well. Not that we ever actually flush our toilet because that would take way too much water But when I would pour a cup of water into the bowl, it would drain away leaving everything else just sitting there. So I thought, gross, it’s clogged. I’ll flush it for real and maybe that will push the clog down. So I let the back of the toilet fill with precious water and then flushed. Ha! Bad idea. Water came flowing over the top of the toilet and all over the floor. I don’t have a plunger but I texted our team leader, Tom, to bring one to our Sunday service. That night I start plunging away and not only did I not fix the clog, but I broke the seal with my frantic attempts and water started leaking from the bottom of the toilet!

As a rather delicate woman, I am over my head at this point. At 10pm last Monday, I once again text my team leader indicating that I probably need professional help of the plumbing persuasion. He had plans the next morning but he took pity on me, canceled his plans and came over to help early Tuesday morning. I will not nauseate you with the details. Suffice to say, Tom is a saint. He worked for three hours, barefoot in a room that I could not pass without gagging…literally, gagging. Three hours later, nothing. He went back to the capital city to get liquid plumber and used an entire bottle. Still nothing.

It was time to call the plumber. All day Wednesday I waited for him. At 5pm he showed up. He came, he saw, he left. Another day with no toilet. I should also mention that the shower drain is connected to the toilet drain so no shower either.

Teammates have been more than kind in offering their homes to us when we wish to shower or use the toilet. Of course our closest teammates are a 15-minute walk and the farthest are a 30-minute drive. So we have become dependent upon our downstairs neighbors. And while I am eternally grateful for their willingness to share, their toilet does not have a seat and my thigh muscles are just not up to snuff when it comes to long-term high squats.

Thursday rolls around. We generally spend every Thursday in the capital city and this past week was no different. We came home to a toilet that had been ripped out of the floor. I asked the neighbors what was going on. They told me that materials needed to be purchased from the capital and then it could be fixed.

The following day, some friends came over and I told them the situation and asked if they thought the plumber would come that day. No, they said, I think not. Today is a short day- I think he will not come. Of course, Friday is a special day in their religious traditions so most shops close and workers stop their work around 11am. Their words were prophetic as we saw not hide or hair of the plumber that day, nor the following day.

As you may understand, this situation has proved more than a little stressful. My emotions have yo-yoed. I have felt depressed and discouraged more often than not. I’ve placed blame; I’ve asked for prayer; I’ve prayed repeatedly; I’ve cried; I’ve felt sorry for myself; I’ve sighed; I’ve thrown my hands up in exasperation. And yesterday I developed a head cold. Finally the constant stress of the week has sufficiently lowered my immune system, and I am now a walking snot bomb. Sorry for the graphic detail.   I’ve already gone through three packets of tissues…today. No medicine has had an effect.  As I’ve taken to telling my neighbors, “Je suffre” or “I’m suffering.”

The piping torn out.

Today, after a wonderful Sunday service and a birthday celebration, I returned home with Tom. My landlord needed to show us something. We go into the downstairs bathroom and low and behold, there’s about a foot of piping that has been cut out. He explains that that is where they thought the clog was. But no, it is actually closer to the septic tank, behind some tiles and cement. So we can either tear out the cement today, then replace the entire pipe tomorrow or we can wait 3-4 days for some stronger liquid plumber to come from the big island and maybe that will work. Tear it out, we decide.

And that’s where we are. The story is not finished. I do not have a toilet or shower. I have a sinus headache; my throat is sore from the nasal drip; I’m running out of tissues and I can’t stop sneezing.

Wow. What a bummer story, right? I started off this week thinking it was a real bummer too. But I’ve been studying James lately and I was reminded of James 1:2 which says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trails of many kinds […]”. So I started trying to feel joy. I worked really hard at it. Feel joy. Feel joy. Feel joy. It wasn’t working! I was still depressed; I still dreaded coming home each night.

But then I remembered James doesn’t say, “feel joy”. He says, “consider”. It’s a mental exercise, not an emotion.

Remember the lesson from my last post? I’d already forgotten it. I worked and worked all week, just trying to keep my head above the waters of depression. But I was sinking fast. God began prodding me, through his Word to let go and consider it pure joy.  What do I have to be joyful about? When I began to consider I was overwhelmed. I have neighbors who let me use their bathroom and their water. I have teammates who love and pray for me and open their homes to me. I have friends and family at home who pray and encourage. I have a strong roommate to suffer alongside and laugh about our problems when we can. I have a kitchen sink that still works. This lets us use way less water and we haven’t had to buy any in almost two weeks! And I have a King who loves me and works all things for good for those who love him and have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

I can’t say that I’ve arrived. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy about this. I still struggle with self-pity at times. I still wish things worked a little bit faster here. But I can see some good. And that is a start.