Convenience.

I was just explaining to my house helper, Lucy, the concept of a vacuum cleaner. She was giggling as I described a machine that you plug into the wall and move around the floor as it sucks all the dirt into itself. She is presently sweeping out the entire house, and somehow getting all of the dirt out the door without a dust pan. She also hand-washes and line-dries all of our laundry--provided there's sun. 


Just yesterday, 2 minutes after I got into my nice warm shower, we lost power, which means that I lost my hot water. The water in our shower is heated in the coils of the pipes electrically so if there's no power, there's no hot water. I endured the freezing water, thanked God for the hot water that I normally take for granted, and 30 seconds after I got out shivering, the power came back on.

One of the showers in our house.

My point in writing this is that I don't want to forget. I'm asking God to help me remember my time here of hand washing and line-drying clothes, taking the occasional freezing cold shower, only being able to sweep and not ever using a vacuum, hand-washing all of our dishes. I don't want to get back to the States and start complaining about my dishwasher or all the laundry I have to do, when I have the conveniences of a machine that will do it for me. I don't want to complain about having to vacuum, but I don't think that will be an issue . . . I'm really excited to use a vacuum cleaner again. 


I'll have to be very purposeful in remembering that the majority of the world does not have the conveniences that I used to have, and that I'll have again soon. The discipline of not complaining about these conveniences is something I know I'm going to have to practice all over again.