During our
three-month orientation to living well in Africa, we learned practical, hands-on
things like how to soak vegetables and fruit in bleach-water to kill amoebas
and other critters.
We also learned to
drive The Pearl. Ah, The Pearl. I haven’t told you yet about The Pearl of
Africa, a 1974 Toyota Land Cruiser, perfect for travel in Africa.
Brian also taught us
to develop coping mechanisms—things that ease frustrations and make life
manageable. For example, the twig shelves Dave made for our tent were coping
mechanisms—they allowed us to unpack our luggage for six weeks and stay
organized.
Do you remember how
our friend Joy turned an upside-down basin into a makeshift toilet seat? That
was also a coping mechanism. Developing coping mechanisms can make the
difference between staying on the mission field or giving up and going home.
We also learned
practical things such as how to sanitize the choo (outhouse) with ashes from
our cooking fire.
And we learned how to
cut hair. One day I helped my friend Nancy cut her psychiatrist-husband’s hair.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed I’d one day run my fingers
through a psychiatrist’s hair.
One day Brian loaded
us into The Pearl and another vehicle and we drove around the vast Maasai
territory. We stopped in a remote, dusty, parched town, but it seemed like a
lively city compared to our campsite, Eleng’ata Enterit. I spotted a man there
who wore a tattered, faded T-shirt advertising Spokane’s famous Bloomsday
Race—Spokane, Washington, my birthplace. We just never know where our thrift
shop donations might end up.
We motored on and came
to a stream and, since the temperature felt like a hundred degrees, people begged
Brian to let them go swimming. He said they could but warned that the water
might have microorganisms that make people sick.
A few people wanted
to swim anyway, and they scouted around for a private place to change
clothes—except for the Dutch family. They walked a short distance away and
changed where anyone could see.
And oh, yes, critters
did live in that stream and they made those swimmers sick, sick, sick for
several days. Our nurse, Jenny Caston, and her trunk of medicine blessed us
richly at such times.
I know first-hand how
important Jenny and her meds were because while we camped at Eleng’ata Enterit,
I got a urinary tract infection. I knew how serious those infections could
become, so I shot prayers heavenward and God answered through Jenny and her
antibiotics.
The meds kicked in
immediately, yet I knew, too, that I had to avoid dehydration under that
equatorial sun. On one afternoon, I knew I had to lie down.
There on my back, I
watched a tiny insect crawl up our tent wall. It climbed higher and higher, but
when it got to within a foot of the top, it flew off the wall and screamed in
wild little circles. After ten seconds of this, it landed back on the wall,
several feet lower than before.
Again, it climbed
higher but, within sight of the top, it tore into its screaming fits and landed
low on the tent wall.
For fifteen minutes,
I watched that little critter repeat its self-defeating behavior. I cheered him
on and urged him not to have a meltdown and give up. He had climbed so close to
the top!
I wanted to tell him
the hardest part was behind him and if he could just hold on for a few more
seconds, he’d reach his destination. But no, he always gave up just before he
reached his goal.
Sometimes we humans
do the same thing. Impatient and weary, we don’t realize how close we are to success
and we give up and indulge in wild fits, and by the time we get back in focus,
we’ve lost ground.
By God’s grace, our
orientation course was aimed at helping us sort all that out. And it was good, so
good. (From Grandma’s Letters from Africa, Chapter 2)
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| Brian and Jenny Caston, dear folks! |
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