Little Things

When you live in a foreign country, navigating little things can feel overwhelming. But this also makes it easy to be thankful for the little things as well.

I have always enjoyed doing laundry…it has never seemed like a chore to me. But in a foreign country, it’s a different story. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out our apartment washing machine. You had to manually turn on the water, and then I would push buttons randomly until it started. Sometimes this took only a couple of minutes to as long as half an hour at a time! Frustrating was an understatement! I finally found the magic trick…you had to push the button at just the right time, while the blinking light was lit up, and then it started every time. Drying clothes is very weather-dependent, as we don’t have a dryer. Forget about doing multiple loads. If I can get one done in a day, I’m happy. When things work the way they’re supposed to — something I would have taken for granted back home — it is a source of joy!

I also praise the Lord for perfect timing. We had a large amount of cardboard from moving, appliances, etc..., but weren’t sure where to take it or how to get rid of it. One day, as I was walking back to my house, I saw a man coming from one of our neighbors’ houses, holding a bag of bottles and a cardboard box. He couldn’t understand English, so with broken Indonesian I told him I had some. He gladly took it all and gave me his number for future pickups. I marveled at the perfect timing, that God had allowed me to come home at just that time!

What I once found easy or took for granted is now an opportunity to be thankful for God’s Hand upon us in even the seemingly “little” things!