Learning Patience

 I think we’ve learned to be more patient.  Tuesday I left the house, giving my kids a quick hug knowing that the errand I was trying to run might mean I wouldn’t get to see them again before they went back to school.  I was trying to pick up some medication for our eldest, the hope being, I would get it to her before they left and send it back to school with her, but we know how things go here, and so I said goodbye just in case things didn’t go to plan.

Doing homeschool in hotel room

This is not the first time we’ve had to be patient getting her medication.  In fact, we’ve had to be patient every time.  This time, as has happened before, the full amount of the medication was not available on the first visit, requiring a second visit.  This despite the fact that we have “a guy” on the inside whom we let know a week ahead of time to help streamline things.  Heaven knows what it would be like if he wasn’t around to help out.  But there’s still a lot of hiccups.  My visit to the pharmacy ended up taking multiple hours.  I missed saying goodbye to the kids and we had to arrange another way to get the meds to our daughter at school, and yet, somehow we were prepared for this outcome.  It was frustrating but not out of the range of my patience.

To add to the comedy of the situation, my Uber driver on the way home, asked if we could make a “quick stop” to pick up fresh batteries for his electric motorcycle.  Needless to say, it wasn’t very quick.  I wrote to Megan, “…driver is changing out his batteries, so I guess I'm learning patience today…”  It turns out, this was just a warm up.

Arriving for our flight back to the islands the next day, we learned once we were at the gate that it would be delayed by 5 hours.  We were told to go to the information desk to get meal vouchers.  After some patience required to reach the front of a very slow line, the kind woman behind the information desk informed us that our flight was cancelled…we’d have to wait until Friday (two days away) and they would be putting us up in a hotel.

On boat to small island

So we wrote this blog from a hotel room and reflecting on patience.  There was a time and place when such an announcement as we received yesterday at the information desk, might have caused great alarm.  What do we do?  What about all the things we will have to rearrange?  Should we look into another flight?  As well as anger with the airline—How can they do this to us!?  Are you kidding me?!  What incompetence!  I would be lying if I said that such thoughts didn’t go through my head, but not in the same way they once did.  Not in the heart-pounding, mind-exploding, emotional rollercoaster way it once would have.  Living here has taught us a degree of patience.  Here was just another opportunity to practice patience, like waiting for medication at the pharmacy or for my Uber driver to pick up new batteries.

I not only see how we’ve grown in patience, but we’ve grown better about anticipating the need for patience.  We put more margin into our schedules.  I know to hug my kids and say goodbye before going to the pharmacy.  We know that things can happen with travel to and from the islands, so we are more prepared for the unexpected.  We pack homeschool supplies with us and have everything we need to do admin work if we are delayed. We had lots of plans for the week on the islands (including travel to the small island and meetings with the team there), but everyone knew that things like this happen and we were all ready to adjust. These are lessons we have learned and they help us to be more patient.

In the end, plans change. The changes will be inconvenient and unfortunate and the like, but we will eventually arrive at our destination.  In the mean time, we can think about all that we’ve learned and try to appreciate the extra time we’ve been given—another possible lesson related to patience.  When travel plans fail, we have more time for other things—in this case, homeschool, writing a blog, or just getting some rest.  We can’t change the circumstances, so we might as well try to be thankful for them.  Thank you Islands, for teaching us many lessons about patience.

PRAYERS ANSWERED 


We are thankful for the time we had at the hotel, which included getting to swim in a pool (swim lessons with our son are so much easier in a pool than the ocean)! Since writing the blog we have traveled and arrived on the little island to run a small conference with the team there.  We are thankful that our boat trip to the little island was completely uneventful on calm seas.  We are thankful that that means Megan’s back was unaffected by that trip.  The new boat business is such a blessing—a world of difference in comfort, safety, and reliability compared to other smaller boats that take people between islands.  We had a few really good days with the team on the little island (we had to end a day earlier than expected but we are thankful for the time we had).  They’ve been serving there for a year and have really done well as a team and integrating into their communities.  It was wonderful to see how much they have accomplished and grown.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
A colleague from the small island is very sick necessitating travel to another country.  She has made it to the big island, but cannot receive the proper care with the limited services on the islands.  A whole team of people (including us) have been dealing with the stress and logistics of arranging for the care and travels of her family.  Pray for healing for her and safe travels for them to mainland Africa tomorrow.  We are also traveling back to Clove Island today.  Pray for our safe travels as well.  Pray for positive reconnection with our friends and neighbors there. There is a cyclone coming our way later in the week.  It doesn’t look too serious, but we are more cautious after last year’s big storm.  Pray that it would blow out, down grade and/or switch direction.