An Update on Perspective

I haven't updated on just general life here in a while and I have enough on my mind to warrant an actual blog post about it all.

So, lately I've had this burning sensation in my shoulders and a near-constant dull headache.  It's stress.  I'm going to go ahead and admit that right now!  Phew.  That feels better.  Hello, my name is Rebecca and I am stressed out.  I'm just being honest.

Our schedule has been shaken up a little.  It's nothing we can't handle and I'm convinced that God is in the changes, even if they look a little strange from man's (or woman's) perspective.  We've been asked to go to Palangkaraya (our actual place of ministry and home base in Indonesia) in 6 weeks.  We'll be there for a few months while Sean gets the training he needs from the instructor who will be moving on to a different base within Indonesia.  Then, we'll come back to Salatiga on the island of Java to complete our last two units of language school before moving back to Palangkaraya permanently.

I'm tired just typing it!

But we're also really excited.  We get to go to Palangkaraya sooner than we thought we would.  We get to go  set up our house there.  We get to take a couple of months off from "school."  We get to spend just a little more time with our friends in Palangkaraya who will be moving.  We get to come back to Salatiga and see our friends here again and we don't have to say any permanent good-byes...yet.

We have a lot to do and a lot of needs.  We weren't expecting to need to furnish our empty Palangkaraya house just yet so we're scrambling to get all that we need.  The thing about setting up a house, though, is that well, in developing countries it can be a little complicated.  Sean and I have spent countless hours pricing out things and we've found that generally speaking, prices are much better here on the island of Java.  But we can't exactly buy it all and ship it all, so we have to pick and choose.  For example:  water heaters are much cheaper here as is a washing machine (we won't have a dryer) so we hope to ship those things.  But we'll have to have other furniture built there in Palangkaraya...which means, unless we can get some things ordered ahead of time, we'll be sleeping on the floor and eating on the floor too until those things can be built.  I'm a woman.  This stresses me out.  At least I'm a woman who loves to camp and has done this very same sort of thing, um, four or five other times?  But, okay, it still stresses me out.

Until I realize that most of my Indonesian neighbors sleep and eat on a mat on the floor all. the. time.  Then, I'm strangely okay with it.

Perspective.

We're trying to get our shipment from the U.S. on its way too.  That's another complicated ordeal and one that we are a little nervous about.  So much can go wrong.  I have this niggling fear that we won't get the crates until December - and that when they do arrive, they'll be full of sea water or termites (both things have happened with other MAF families recently).  So, I stress about that, about whether or not we did the shipping list right or whether or not our shipment will be opened by the customs guys with a chip on their shoulders.

Until I realize it's just stuff.  And I've lived without it already for nearly a year.  And it can all be replaced.  And nobody is going to want a quilt on their bed anyway because it's too stinkin' hot.

Again.  Perspective.

I love how God uses times like these to help me realize just how shallow and silly I am.  To be losing sleep and physically hurting over stuff?  Wow.  Not cool.

Do I really believe that He who called us is faithful?  Do I really believe that even if I do get a crate full of sea water that God is still good?  Will I somehow still live without a bed frame or a table?

Of course the answers to all of these questions is a resounding and heartfelt YES!


Lord, may I trust you more and worry about "things" less.


Now, I really do feel better.


Perspective!