Amy Medina

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

On December 8, 2008

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I’m struggling with this one today.

Saturday Gil came home after two weeks in the States for his brother’s wedding. Joy!

Saturday night the power went out. Sigh. Long night. Gil can barely sleep with no power; I do better but not by much. Imagine trying to sleep in your car on a hot day with all the windows up. That’s what it feels like.

No power all day Sunday.

No power all Sunday night. Gil came to school and slept in his classroom.

No power all day today. Broke a record for us–previously, the longest we had gone without power was 36 hours.

Called the power company–again–this afternoon.

They finally admitted that the transformer for our neighborhood blew up because someone stole the oil out of it–a common occurance.

And they don’t have a replacement. And they don’t know when they will.

Last night I took all the meat out of my freezer to a friend’s house who has a deep freezer. In a couple days our house will run out of water, since every few days it has to be pumped in by electric pump.

I am not feeling thankful. I am not feeling joyful. I am actually feeling quite grumpy.

And bitter.

I am very, very mad at the thieves who took the oil. People like that are tearing their country down instead of building it up.

And now what will we do? We can’t realistically stay in our house with no power and no water. Our house is quite dark during the day, without lights. And totally miserable without fans. Without a fridge. Or a computer to do our work on.

And I am pouting. Because we had plans to decorate for Christmas this week. And instead we’re looking into guest houses or hotels or house sitting for someone. For who knows how long. Really, it could be weeks. The thought of not being in our house for Christmas–and the big celebration I am already planning–is almost more than I can bear.

But what does Scripture say? Be joyful always….give thanks in all circumstances.

And I am mad at myself, at my own reaction, knowing full well that billions of people all over the world…less than a mile away from me…never have electricity or running water. Never have Christmas decorations. Never have health and daily bread and all the other things that I have been blessed with.

So I am thankful for this situation because it does reveal attitudes….motives….idols in my heart that need to be dealt with. Pray that God roots them out and disposes of them.

Adventures in Humidity

By Amy Medina

On December 3, 2008

In Other

We have had the rainiest November in the six years we have lived here. I finally got a picture of what the road outside our house looks like when it rains…and this isn’t even as bad as it was the day of the Big Flood.

All this rain has resulted what feels like the highest humidity we’ve ever felt. 100% humidity, to be exact. 100% humidity sort of feels like a sauna…or a steam room…or the bathroom after a hot shower. It’s actually not that hot in temperature–it hovers around 88 degrees. But besides making you constantly sweat, humidity does weird things, especially to food. Like making bread mold if you leave it out overnight. And making mold grow on your leather shoes. And the other day, I went into my pantry and found this:

Can you tell from the picture? The Hershey’s syrup was blown up like a balloon. Hmmm… Checked the expiration date. Not expired. Opened it up. Smelled like beer.

Did you know you can make beer from Hershey’s syrup?

Tasted it. Don’t know if it tastes right. The stuff is vile to me anyway, since my parents forever ruined Hershey’s syrup for me by smashing up malaria tablets and making me take them in Hershey’s syrup every Sunday for all of my young life. So now? Hershey’s syrup forever tastes like choroquine to me.

And now it smells like beer.

Still haven’t thrown it away though. That stuff’s expensive.

16+16=32

By Amy Medina

On December 1, 2008

In Other

On the night before my 16th birthday

my best friends kidnapped me in my pajamas

and made me a cake

and I slept over at a friend’s house

and then the next day they dressed me up in my fanciest dress

and curled my hair

and took me out for breakfast

and made me go to school like that so that everyone would know that it was my birthday.

And I felt very loved.

Sixteen years later, on my 32nd birthday,

Four of my favorite girls, who used to be my students but are now my friends

came to my house

and made me a cake

and gave me a present

and curled my hair

and decorated my daughter

and arranged for a baby-sitter, since Gil is in the States right now—thanks, Christa!
and took me out to dinner.

And I felt very, very loved.

Thankful in Tanzania

By Amy Medina

On November 29, 2008

In Other

Today is Thanksgiving! Okay, so I know it’s not really, but in my mind it is. Tanzania doesn’t observe American Thanksgiving (duh), so it’s a normal workday for everyone. So traditionally, every year our mission team celebrates Thanksgiving on the Saturday after–hence, today!

We always manage to get a turkey from somewhere–often have a student at boarding school bring one down from Kenya, but I think that this year our team had a friend bring us a turkey from Dubai (United Arab Emerites). Yep, you got it, American Thanksgiving with an Arab turkey.

And if I do say so myself, we always manage to do pretty well for ourselves with the ingredients found here. Mmmmm….here’s all our (very homemade) pies.

This team is our family while we are here. We meet with them once a week to pray, and over the years, they have cried with us, loved us, and supported us. Thanksgiving is definitely not the same without our biological family, but I am so thankful for my surrogate family.

God is good. I am so incredibly, amazingly grateful for His wonderful grace in my life. My husband, my children, my parents, all of our needs provided for, ministry that we love, the churches and families who financially support us…I am indeed blessed.

And I am, by the way, significantly more joyful regarding God’s change in our plans for our Home Assignment. A couple hard days…and then acceptance and peace. I look forward to seeing what He has in store for us.

Oh, one more very, very cute thing….while taking the above picture, we were all delighted to hear Josiah say “Cheeeeeeeeeessssse!” (in baby language) for each of the three cameras that took the picture. With no prompting from us. He is definitely his father’s son.