Battling Dust and Mosquitoes

 There is a war going on at our house! It has always been going on, but only recently the battle has become intense. This Sunday, we were studying a passage from Joel that talked about the hordes of locusts descending. It can feel like that, but our battle isn’t against locusts, it is against dust and mosquitoes.  

On dusty porch with new duster

The dust war is primarily a seasonal battle. In July and August, the rains stop and the ground dries out, so the air and breezes carry the fine black volcanic dust with them wherever it blows. A couple nights ago, it got particularly windy as we slept and when we woke up our porch and front room floors were covered in black. 

The mosquitoes is a new battle for us. The islands have always had mosquitoes, but for some reason they are everywhere right now. Even islanders have commented on it. Our house usually has had very few mosquitoes, partially from being on a second floor. So even though our house has never been fully screened, we’ve never been too concerned about mosquitoes. But now we wish our house was fully screened! We don’t know exactly what is going on, but it feels like one of the cyclic surges you see with some types of trees or bugs in the US, where every so many years they produce several times more than normal. We’ve never heard of mosquitoes doing that, but it feels that way. 

It can feel like a losing battle. You sweep or dust and so quickly the black layer returns. Our boys don’t wear house sandals like we do inside, and every once in awhile we urge them to wash the black bottoms of their feet only to have them complain that they had just washed them off. It’s hard to hold the dust at bay. Meanwhile, we keep killing more and more mosquitoes, but it doesn’t seem to make a dent. They just keep coming. 

Son and Tom screening windows

But even though it can feel like a losing battle, we don’t give up. To give up would be to live in filth and be covered in bug bites and subject to mosquito born illnesses (currently a nasty one called chikungunya is going around). No, we don’t give up. We pray, we equip ourselves and we fight back. This week we screened some windows that hadn’t been. We have started keeping a mosquito zapper always charged, and we bought a new duster. Ultimately we don’t despair because we know how to fight back and we know it will get better. 

Dust and mosquitoes are common parts of life here all year round. Most of the time we don’t even think about them that much— they are there and we live with them in a relatively complacent way. Our house wasn’t fully screened, we weren’t in the habit of dusting regularly. But now the mosquitoes and dust are abundant and overwhelming. We can no longer be complacent, we have to fight back or we will be overcome. 

It feels like a sermon illustration! We haven’t felt that our battle with dust and mosquitoes is spiritual in nature, but it does make me think, what insidious things do I complacently allow to linger in my heart that could one day swarm and threaten to overwhelm me. Sometimes the war is ongoing, but it takes an intense battle to wake us up to the fight. 

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are so enjoying having our kids around.  Tom had some good studies with Muki and Mtsa this past week.  Muki is starting to understand some important aspects of the good news he hadn’t before.  Megan continues to study with Hashiri and has seen some positive growth in her understanding as well.  

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that we would see a marked decrease in the number of mosquitos around our house and that the Lord would be merciful and keep mosquito-born illnesses from infecting the population.  Pray for Mtsa to get opportunities to share at his work and Muki to share more with his family.  Pray for all the ones we are studying with to experience life transformation.  Keep praying for the plans for a men’s gathering hoping to start next month.  Keep praying for health and healing for the two island sisters who have ongoing health concerns.  The final set of national school exams are happening right now (these ones are to go from jr. high to high school)— we know several kids taking them. Pray that they would remember all they’ve learned and not be too stressed.