Noticing the good stuff, finding the joy

I began to notice more good stuff going on in Lomalinda.  

 

God was offering me new opportunities. He was offering me a new perspective, a new way to do Life. A new attitude. New goals.

It took me a few weeks to figure that out, but God patiently waited for me to notice. 

 

As Rachel Marie Martin said:

 

“Sometimes you have to let go of the picture

of what you thought life would be like

and learn to find joy in the story you are actually living.”

 

Rachel nailed it.

 

Finding the joy: During our first few days, I had longed for familiar faces, familiar voices, and especially familiar smells. But instead, only a strange odor had wafted through our windows—a thick, pungent, sweet, moist stink. Was it decay?

 

That sticky, moldering smell radiated out of the earth and crawled in the air and forced its way into our house and our noses and clung to our clothes and bedding and furniture. For days it had made my stomach sick and left me light-headed.

 

The dense, damp reeking of the place threatened to overpower me.

 

But then, a few weeks later, my nose adjusted—odors smelled less offensive. Hooray! (See my earlier post, I could only gasp, “Please, God, get me out of here!”)

 

Finding the joy: One of the blessings I noticed right away was that carrots and tomatoes tasted like real carrots and tomatoes, genuine flavors I recalled from childhood when people grew their own produce. What a welcome contrast they were compared to the carrots and tomatoes from grocery stores back in the States, which had little taste.

 

Finding the joy: Lomalinda was a place of brilliant flowers, shrubs, and trees. In our yard, we had a papaya tree, an avocado tree, a mango tree, and a lemon tree. Growing such trees back home in Seattle was unheard of. (Don’t miss my earlier post, Blooming where you’re planted.)

 

Finding the joy: Our first-grader, Matt, and our Kindergartener, Karen, loved school—their teachers and their classmates—and were excelling in their studies.

 

Finding the joy: Soon the teens (missionaries’ kids) got acquainted with Dave and his goofy humor. He taught them English, Psychology, History, and P.E.

 

But his most welcome contribution for the forty-two junior high and senior high students was new programs: drama, student newspaper, student council, and yearbook. Students and parents were delighted.

 

Right away Dave started work on three one-act plays and, after he gave out parts, the cast’s excitement was palpable.

 

By the middle of September, the school’s newspaper staff published their first issue. We weren’t sure what to expect but it turned out better than we imagined, and everyone’s pleasure showed.

 

Dave played soccer and softball with the teens on weekends, and they and their parents appreciated the energy and humor he brought to academics and athletics.

 

Still today, his former students reminisce about his teaching style and the way he related with them.

 

Yes, good stuff was happening in Lomalinda.

I was finding the joy.

What a welcome change that was for me.