Which is worse do you think?
As you can probably tell these all happened to me this week, but to be honest my week hasn't been all that bad, it's been pretty good... Well you know other than those 3 above mentioned moments. Ruth has been a hit, she has enjoyed getting to know everyone here in Congo all over again. Her memory is better than mine and just melts peoples hearts as she chats away in French, English and sometimes her own language. Pascal laughed the other day! It was a beautiful grunty lil giggle and I loved it! I think Ruth may get Nicks ability to sing and well Pascal will have my lack of any musical talent haha.
1. A cockroach landing on your neck and waking you up at 5:30am
said cockroach... it met a dark fate |
2. bending down to get something in a dark corner and there end up being a HUGE spider web there and it getting stuck to your face
Or
3. a party starting in the property right behind yours starting at 10pm and well it's 7am and it's still going. With them blowing whistles ALL night long! WHISTLES ...
I digress ...
Being 'gentle' ^_^ |
We have been able to figure out a sort of schedule providing for the needs of both Ruth and Pascal and even some play time. Some days I am praying for the moment Nick gets home but others are still tiring but so good!
She loves her time with Papa |
Nick has been the official boss at the MAF office for the last 2 weeks. It's been quite the learning curve, not because he is not capable of doing any of it but because of the amount of things that need to be done and approved by the director. I think I have talked about before that there is not much trust here in Congo which is why everything takes so long. When there is no trust, cost and time spent go up and when there is trust, cost and time spent go down. In North America we have a mid to high level of trust in people so things can be done fairly quickly... Here there is no trust, no trust from the government to the guy selling cell phone credits on the corner... So producing trust takes a LONGGGGG time. So because of that culture everything takes a long time and the only way to produce trust is to make long and lasting realtionships with mutual trust. Which is what Nick as the new director de la MAF is trying his best to do in between all of the administrative stuff he is asked to do which he could do all week and maybe still not get it done.
Though, like I said above... It may seem unpleasant and there are probably parts of his day that are frustrating he still comes home every day and says that he is really enjoying it. The times when he is able to have really meaningful trust building Christ-filled conversations with our employees, government officials coming to ask for another 'tax' or people needing the services of MAF; it may be difficult and seemingly unpleasant but it is so worth it because in the end Christ is glorified and people are spiritually and physically transformed. That's why we are here...
Though I may be buying another bottle of raid for those cockroaches.