New Purchase Expectations

Curtain shopping

You know that feeling you get with a new purchase—taking it out of the box for the first time, it’s pristine, and perfect, just what you wanted and you know that you can expect it to work and to work well.  That’s the point in getting something new rather than used, right?  New things have guarantees, warranties, and return policies.  I know with online vendors, sometimes what comes out of the box isn’t right—the wrong order, not what you expected, inferior quality, but if that’s the case, well, you can put it in the box and ship it back.  The customer is always right!

It doesn’t work that way on the islands. These past couple of weeks we’ve been making a lot of new purchases.  We recently moved into our new house and there are things it needs.  Moreover, we are preparing to receive new teammates, and their house also requires many new purchases to get it ready for them.  So over the past month we’ve done a fair amount of shopping.

New purchases never seem to go as planned on the islands.  Things are just more complicated, and we’ve learned to lower our expectations.  To begin with, we long ago gave up on the idea of finding “exactly what we want.”  Most of the time it’s just not possible.  We know that either it won’t be the exact size we wanted or maybe the color will be hideous or the quality won’t be as good as we wanted. Take our new house for example.  We wanted some pre-made curtains for the living room.  Before setting out, we agreed that whatever we found, we would probably not like it from an aesthetic viewpoint.  It was more about what we could tolerate. The selection is limited.  We are not talking about hundreds of options we are talking about a dozen options, distributed to about 4 or 5 shops around town with at most 3 options per shop.  The same goes for most purchases.  A shop rarely carries multiple versions of the same product.  If you want to see more options, you’ll have to hunt for another shop that carries it, where you may or may not find anything better.

Then there is taking it home and opening up the box.  Brace yourself—because there’s probably going to be a problem straight out of the box.  This is often because this is not the first time the product has left the box (they rarely discount the display models). Just this month we found that the new curtains didn’t quite match, there was a dent in the side of the new stove, a screw was missing from the new fan, and little bits of broken plastic came tinkling out with the new flashlight. This is par for the course. We swallow the disappointment and face the next wonderful question.  “Is it worth returning it?”

Comparing options

Returns are not a given on the islands.  We have purchased things, had them break within 5 minutes of use, returned the next day with the product and been refused a refund.  That happens all too frequently.  Sometimes you can get a promise before the purchase that they will take it back if it doesn’t work—but they are talking about a day or two.  If you come back after a week—forget it!  So when it comes out of the box without the screw, or the small dent, or the bits of plastic, we look it over and try to decide if we can make it work.  Can we get another screw?  Can we bang out the dent?  Was that little piece of plastic really necessary?  Basically, we start fixing it right out of the box. If it doesn’t seem like a big deal, we accept it, because we know that returning will most likely be a hassle!

So that contented feeling you get with a new purchase—we sometimes get that here on the islands, but it comes later.  After a few weeks, when the slightly mismatched curtains turn out to work fine or that dent in the oven is hardly noticeable, or when you really needed that flashlight and you realize “those little plastic pieces must not have been all that important after all because that flashlight worked when you needed it!”, that’s when you feel it.  If something is functional, and doesn’t completely break or break down weeks after purchase—that is a win! 

Not matching, but close enough!

So we can feel the joy of a well-made purchase, it just takes a little longer to appreciate it.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We ended up having a harder week than we hoped. Both of us had a strong relapse of COVID symptoms that returned us to bed, but we are thankful now that we are improving and have our energy back! We are hopeful that now that we have passed the two-week mark, we won’t have any more setbacks. Both of our teammates are doing noticeably better. Our third teammate is set to come out of isolation tomorrow! The house for our new teammates has finished its needed renovations and most of the big purchases for house set-up have been made! Ma Imani had the chance to share with a friend that then passed on what she had learned, which led to Ma Imani being invited to a village where she was introduced to an old isolated brother (he had heard and accepted when he was a young student abroad). She will go back and study with his family!

PRAYERS REQUESTED
We have two new teammates arriving on Wednesday (Feb 10). Pray that their COVID tests would come back negative, that they would have no problems at immigration and that they would be able to make a same day connection from the big island to our island. Pray for our other teammate who will fly to the big island to facilitate their arrival. Once they arrive they will be staying at our house for the first week and a half for orientation. Pray that orientation would go well and that we would get along well as a household of 7! Island schools have all been closed! There is no online learning here, so please pray for all the bored island children stuck at home. Pray for the teachers that won’t be paid. Pray that these shut-down measures have an impact so  that this COVID surge on the islands will end soon! Continue to pray for the sick and the frontline medical workers. Our colleague doctor on the French island says the hospital there is completely full, no more beds!