Generators humming
Roosters crowing
Birds chirping
Wind rustling
Lights sparkling
Water glistening
Stillness
Cars starting
Dogs barking
Drivers talking
Scooters rumbling
Horns blaring
Music playing
The city is waking up
My body doesn’t know what time it is, so I am wide awake at 5:30 am on a Sat morning, grateful that it’s the latest day of sleep yet. I don’t want to wake Charley, so I headed out to the balcony to have some quiet time with my Bible and try to wrap my head around my new surroundings. I want this blog to be honest and real; I don’t want to make it sound worse or better than it is - but a true view of things we are experiencing and feeling, not an attempt to smooth over the rough spots. Overall, I see life with a positive attitude and a "glass half-full" approach and that won’t change. But sometimes..…the unfamiliar, the foreign and the chaos can just feel overwhelming. To find a new ‘normal’ in a foreign land is a challenge and one that we’ll discover bit by bit. Right now, I can’t figure out how to turn on the oven, the locations for the lights don’t make sense to me, the a/c is either on (and freezing) or off (and humid), and I’m trying to figure out the ELEVEN deadbolts (pins) on our front door (and wondering WHY we need that many)….but I know we’ll figure it out. It’s just the unsettled feeling that comes with moving and learning new things.
One thing that I learned in moving to Puerto Rico was to rejoice in the midst of the transition, rejoice with the bad, rejoice with the good. But it must be a conscious choice…one that I want to choose daily. As we go through culture shock in adapting to our new land, I look forward to discovering the beauty in front of us, knowing that the newness of it all will wear off soon.
“Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!” Phil 4:4
Janet
P.S This morning Charley and I were in the kitchen fixing toast and he was going to throw away the heel of the bread. Before he dropped it in the garbage, he commented, “Somewhere in Africa there are starving children” and then stopped and realized what he said. Now, what do we do with leftovers? :)
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