Yes, I used to lead a very lovely life.  I had a big house with a spacious kitchen with all new appliances that matched in color, beautiful brand new furniture (except the couches – the couches had seen better days), comfy bed, and my own walk-in-closet.  I know.  That was the DREAM.  I knew that I would have to give up most of those wonderful things I loved about my lovely life if I were to become a missionary.  The thought was daunting and a little discouraging.  I am not gonna lie; I even looked into the possibility of purchasing a Tempur-Pedic mattress in the Dominican Republic.  But the Holy Spirit is powerful (more powerful than my love of comfortable and lovely things), so I counted it all as lost and gave it all up.

There are many conveniences and luxuries I had in the states that I knew were luxuries.  There were favorites that I knew I would miss once I moved to the mission field.  I knew that some days it would be very hard to not run to Starbucks for a hazelnut latte, but that would be small potatoes if I was serving my Lord.  I could do it.  I could give up these luxuries that I had grown accustomed to in the states.  (Those were things I said arrogantly with boastful pride when I really had no idea what I was getting myself into.)

The truth is, I did give up a lot of luxuries.  Some I knew about like the microwave, dryer, dishwasher, and Starbucks, but there were so many luxuries I took for granted.  It is actually quite fascinating how life in other countries is SO different.  Let’s take water.  The subject of water in another country has so many facets that it could be its own post entirely, but let’s simply focus on water getting to my shower upstairs.

This is not the first time we have lived in a two-story house.  I would shower in an upstairs shower close to every day and never give it a second thought.  Do you know that water traveling up is against gravity?  Of course you did.  Everybody does.  So why does it surprise me that it isn’t always easy for water to get to my upstairs shower?  First of all, in the DR, we have a pump.  The pump, just as it sounds, pumps water to the tank on our roof so we can use the shower.  Then there is the water pressure.  The pressure is highest when the city turns on the water that runs to your neighborhood.  This is still hard for me to wrap my first-world-head around so I could be relaying inaccurate or incomplete information.  It boggles my mind.  Anyway, if for some reason your pump breaks (and I have learned that there are many different parts of your pump that can break) or the city hasn’t turned your section of the water on lately and your tank didn’t get the pressure to fill up, then you just can’t shower.  This process was mind-blowing and I finally asked Blake, “So how did water get to my shower when we lived in Vegas? Did we used to have a pump that I didn’t know about?”  Apparently that was a hilarious question, and the answer was: no, we did not have a pump in Las Vegas.  This was something I never had to think about – the water was always just upstairs when I needed it.  To conclude my thoughts on water and showers for today… let’s just say that dry shampoo has become my new best friend.

Something else I took for granted:  Trash pick-up.  Things that are so simple in some parts of the world just work differently other places.  Trash pick-up happens here, so thankfully we do not have to take our trash anywhere.  Huge Blessing.  I can’t even imagine transporting my trash – and the bugs that just follow trash wherever it goes.  The struggle here is there just isn’t a schedule.  So a truck could drive by twice in one week or once every other month.  
You just never know.  The tricky part: you want to have your trash
out on the street so you don’t miss trash pick-up, but you also run the risk of the trash getting eaten by the dogs or cows (yes, I said cows) (yes, this makes me think twice about buying beef in the grocery store… it’s better if we just don’t think about it).  When the animals do get into your tras
h can, it leaves quite the awful mess that needs to be cleaned up the next morning.  It’s just not a fun way to start the day.

Directions.  When I would go to Spanish class, I would take a taxi home with Rachel — just the two of us.  I used to be so brave.  After our first week in the mission field, I realized the most important Spanish words I should have learned were “left” and “right” because if the taxi driver was going to see me point, I would have to obnoxiously lean over the seat and wave frantically (I would also have to know where I was going, and one thing I didn’t expect about culture shock was the feeling of always being turned around).  What also makes giving directions a little more difficult down here is there aren’t always street signs or house numbers.  So I would have to memorize simply the words “derecha” and “izquierda” in the correct order with the words “segundo” or “primer” thrown into the mix.  Thankfully, we found a taxi driver who would regularly take us home, and he learned the way to our house so I could sit back and enjoy the view.  However, we have realized that trying to order take-out (yes, it’s a thing even here) sometimes is not worth the battle of explaining where we live.

Do you know what else I used to take for granted?  God’s grace.  I mean I always knew it was huge but my brain back then didn’t quite comprehend how big His grace is in every aspect of my life.  I didn’t know how much I would rely on His grace to survive day to day on the mission field.  His grace covers my multitude of sins and flaws, and that just wasn’t very apparent when I lived my lovely life in the suburbs.  It is apparent now.  It is apparent when I have nothing to offer of my own.  It is apparent when I am able to move (twice) to a foreign country, when I don’t cry hiding in my closet every day, when I have very small victories with language or culture.  It is apparent because I am surviving and it is due solely to the grace of my God.

I am thankful that I see His grace in a completely new light, and I am ashamed it took me moving to the mission field to understand more deeply the depth of His grace.  What I understand now is that my earthly brain can’t comprehend how sufficient His grace truly is for me – for each of us.