enough

I should have known yesterday was going to be a long day when it started at 6:30 am with a fire.

Lily had decided she wanted popcorn for breakfast, of course, and also decided she "did not want to wake Mom up" (ie...knew mom would say NO).  So, she asked Noel to help her.  Not being accustomed to microwaves, they put the bag, still wrapped in plastic, in the microwave for 9:99.  

Oh yes they did.

How I learned of the fire: "Mom, Mom!  Noel and I caught the microwave on fire!  But don't worry, we put the popcorn in the fridge!"

An hour later, we're full speed ahead in the office, really scrambling to get everything ready for student retreat Thursday and Friday, a new family moving in Thursday, staff retreat Saturday, and a new year starting Monday!  

...till Granny comes: "Sofie is just crying and crying and Gertha can't get her to stop.  Oh, and she's vomiting."

Matt ran home to be with her as I was walking into a meeting with Lucner and Fanfan, and in the middle of that meeting, me anxious to get home to Sofie, Lucner gets a call from a frantic Luna.  He had JUST taken her and their 2 babies to her parents house for a few days...she's been sick and needs extra help.  Then, right near the house, a riot had broken out--something about the president shutting down a radio station who had been broadcasting unfavorable things about his administration--which now had the UN involved, and tear gas bombs were going off outside and coming in their windows.

I could hear the babies crying, and Luna frantic.  And nothing Lucner could do, because you can't GET places when there's a riot.  

Put my concern over Sofie vomiting in a better perspective.

By the time I got home...everything was a little crazy.  With a new family of 6 living down the road coming for dinner, I got everyone cleaned up, settled and fed and off for nap, and got cooking, even doing one of the meetings I had missed by going home early in the kitchen while kneading bread.  

When the girls woke we did some of Lily's schoolwork, and then she was off with dad to pick up the family...only to see 5 missed calls.  The youngest child of the family had fallen out of a tree and hurt her back, and was getting x-rays now. 

Matt brought half the family back, and the moment they pulled in the driveway for dinner, so did some other friends, arriving to look into buying some goats from a friend of ours in the community.

By the time I was reading the girls their bedtime stories while Matt took the family back home, it was all I could do to turn the pages...

'till Matt got home at nine and reminded me that tonight was our first weekly prayer meeting with the other missionaries involved with EBS.  

All that to say: we are clearly settling back in nicely and life is plunging full speed ahead!  

Fires, vomit, tear gas, lemon bars, x-rays, goat breeding, prayer meetings...

Praise the Lord for the sweet spot of my day...right smack in the middle, sweaty, sticky, frazzled and busy...the 2-3 o'clock still hour I get with HIM.  What did O.Chambers say yesterday? 

Rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him...and then give God that.

So thankful to have a God who finds that sweaty, frazzled, sticky mere human being standing before Him, desperately offering, and it is ENOUGH.