It's so easy to be frustrated with our maid here, until she opens up on a long rant about how her life is frustrating and people cheat her and have unfair expectations. Then all I feel is guilty about thinking harshly about her, followed by compassion and a desire to help. I wish my compassion was so great that it would be my first reaction, not my second.

She's borrowed some money so that she could relocate to a cheaper house close to friends and family, but those 'friends' are suddenly adding restrictions to her living arrangements and threatening to turn off her electricity if she doesn't give them more income. We try to avoid giving gifts on a regular basis so that she can learn some independence and finance management, but my heart was being tugged as I saw her being taken advantage of by her 'friends'. So I told her that I didn't want her to have to live by candlelight and gave her the equivalent of about $8 for her electricity bill, and her response was quite overwhelming.

It's the Ugly/Beautiful again. The injustice that occurred was ugly, and simply a result of our broken world, but God turned it to an opportunity for a simple physical gift, which became a heartfelt display of love. She cried and hugged me and thanked me so much, as if I was worthy of her praise, but I redirected it and we thanked God together for his goodness!

ALSO, while perusing through Ann Voskamp's blog today (one of the inspirations for this blog) I discovered a yearly challenge to count 1000 gifts. There is a daily topic and a challenge to find 3 things to give thanks for in that topic. I JUST read the one for April 14 a few minutes ago and laughed out loud because a few minutes before that I was in awe of the very thing! Enough vague chatter, the list said "3 things found looking up" and the up is very beautiful tonight!

127. the joy from our maid for receiving the gift of light and electricity
128. the moon is blinding tonight!
129. the clouds make 'out there' look so far away
130. I don't know my constellations here, but it sure looks like there's an upside down Dipper

And when I look up into the Heavens, my heart says "not this, but the Maker of this"

It's been over a month since my last post and you probably thought I fell of the earth. To be honest, I've hit a few "tired of this country" moments in the past few weeks and I've been haunted by the feeling that I should "write a blog post" but I just haven't felt like it, so I put it off.

That's a bit ironic though because that's the reason I started this blog. I knew I would constant reminders to seek joy in the mundane and praise God for the frustrating, but my sinful nature just "didn't feel like it". I guess that's why thanksgiving is a discipline. I'm learning a new appreciation for that word.

Today was another day where I was frustrated by Africa: my computer is malfunctioning because it's too dusty, my brain is malfunctioning because it's too hot out, etcetera etcetera. So, after church I poured myself some juice, turned up the music, closed my door and painted for 4 hours. I had all colours of paint and papers sprawled across my floor, and while I sat in the middle of organized mess I communed with God. These are things I've put off thanking God for:

108. sunbirds
109. paint
110. messes
111. music
112. humming
113. working outdoors and sweating
114. a fresh, inviting sandbox (I cleaned out the pebbles and weeds because we have kids moving in soon!)
115. those crazy birds that go HAAAHAAAA. I like to laugh back at them.
116. girls in plaid uniforms skipping at school
117. t-shirt labels in the wrong context (the African with the "kiss me I'm Dutch" shirt made my day!)
118. Nutella
119. rain. I love rain for SO many reasons!
120. thunder
121. Tom! My favourite boda boda driver who teaches me Luganda
122. our maid, and the way she constantly challenges me to serve, to be humble, and to be patient
123. seeing my plants grow
124. seeing red, pink, purple, white, and yellow blooming from green
125. Scrabble
126. photographs

To name a few.