Pray for us to be patient

By Anthony:

At times, I feel ashamed of my character.  I have an incredibly easy life, and yet I get frustrated about very little things.  Just because we are missionaries, we are not perfect.  We are far from it.  There are so many things that Jesus needs to change about our character.  Particularly, I need to learn patience.  Things that have been trying my patience in the last few months:

- People demanding that we give them our dog, or give them money, when they see us walking or see us in town.  Often they demand this rudely without even greeting us first.  What would be extremely offensive to do to another Ugandan, they seem to think is okay to do with us because we are foreigners.  Sometimes we try to communicate how what they say is rude, but it's difficult to do this with love.  Sometimes it's hard to balance turning the other cheek with explaining how someone could speak to us more politely.

- Ants getting into anything and everything not tightly sealed down.  Our one safe place to let food cool, the inside of the microwave, is no longer safe as we found a horde of ants inside it.  We are now used to drinking our filtered water filled with ant carcasses.

- Dusty roads.  As we bicycle to church and a vehicle passes we get smothered in dust.  It's hard to breathe or open your eyes.  The rain delayed this year so the dust got pretty bad.  We had to dust our desks every day.  Thankfully it seems that the rains have finally come.  We heard that the last time it took so long for rain to come during this time of year was 1955 (according to local elderly folks).  So we are hopeful that the rainy season has finally started!
 

- Power outages.  We had a good streak of no power outages for almost 2 months for the holidays!  But now things are back to normal with frequent outages, making it hard to do work on the computer.

- Internet problems.  We used to have a pretty amazing internet connection considering we live in Uganda.  But lately the connection has gotten worse and worse with frequent disconnections.  I've been speaking with the company looking for a solution.

- Water outages.  When the water goes off for over a week, our tank gets empty quickly, and we end up needing to get water from the borehole.  That means bathing with a basin and no shower.

- The heat.  It's now 88 - 91 degrees in our bedroom each night.  We are thankful to have a fan.  But the heat + no power = lots of sweat. 

Sure these things are annoying, but in the scheme of eternity, they are beyond insignificant.  Jesus put up with a heck of a lot worse and he did so with patience and love.  And he calls us to strive to do the same.  The Pauls and Stephens of the world had to put up with more than simple annoyance; they had hunger, persecution, thirst, poverty, and even death.  If they could have patience for those things, surely I can learn to have patience through these minor annoyances.  I need to not let them trouble me, but to say, "Lord, I'm not going to get angry about this power outage, but I'm going to praise you, and thank you for your grace, and instead of whining, I'll go read a book with a flashlight."  Pray for us that we can develop this type of patience!  Thank you!