All the Little Things...

At the end of August, as I was gearing up to teach a course through EuNC (which took most of my time in September), a lot of little things started to go wrong.

Within a single week, my washing machine decided to stop working. Well, it worked, but the water wouldn’t drain out. Since it’s a front-loading machine, that means BIG MESS when opening the door - flooding my kitchen floor! Another time, while using my washing machine, I smelled something funny, only to then notice smoke billowing out of a wall electrical socket. A day or so later, my kitchen faucet decided to drip, and drip constantly, losing about a quart (or liter, depending on which system you prefer) per hour!
In that same week, my computer decided that although it would turn on, it wouldn’t start Windows, causing me to have to reload Windows on the machine – which takes a while to get all my programs and preferences loaded back on it. This is also about the same time that the drama began with getting my visa renewed (click here to read about that).

I had to dedicate almost all of my time in September for preparing 7 hours of lecture material for each weekend session of the EuNC course I was teaching. Fortunately, though, I was able to have all of those problems repaired.

There were other smaller things - not as urgent, but just annoying, that seemed to go wrong at about the same time. One of my many potted plants in my apartment decided to jump out of its pot – yes, it literally jumped out of its pot. It was top-heavy, and the roots were not deep enough to sustain it. (This will make a great sermon illustration one day!) Anyway, it died.

Additionally, my kitchen clock decided that it could no longer keep track of time. I changed the battery, but that didn't help. Some days, it would keep time, but other days it stopped completely, only to start again a few hours later (with the wrong time, of course). Speaking of things in the kitchen, my electric kettle to boil water quit working for several weeks, but has suddenly come back to life - without me doing a thing!

For the past several weeks, I've had dozens of flies in my apartment. Like the kitchen window, the bedroom window has gaps in it that allow the flies to enter, but then they can't figure out how to leave. At least I have ear plugs, so I'm no longer awakened by the flies flying into the window, searching for a way out.

Now that the course is over, my to-do list is quickly expanding once again. Within the past week, every time I've taken a shower, the bathroom floods because of water backing up and out of the floor drain. Speaking of flooding - this summer, my kitchen floor was flooded every time it rained because my kitchen windows are so old they don't keep the rain water out!

It is very overwhelming with all of these things happening at once. The urgent takes priority over the important, and often takes quite a while to resolve. That means that otherwise important matters like designing training for children's workers, restarting the young adult Bible study, and preparing a sermon for next Sunday, are pushed into the shadows of "later."

Although you may not be able to fix the everyday problems that I'm facing, I ask that you pray that they will quickly be resolved, and that "overwhelming" doesn't turn into "discouraging."

I hope I'll be able to post a positive continuation to this post in the near future.