When life gives you lemons you make lemonade. And, when life gives you a moldy tent... Well, you camp anyway, because what else are you going to do when you're four-and-a-half hours away from home?
We've been a lot of lemons, and let's suffice it to say that in our five years here we haven't always made lemonade with them. There have been times, especially in the early years, when something would go wrong and we'd have really rotten attitudes about it. We'd huff out a sigh, mentally stomp our feet, and roll our eyes while giving a derisive, "Africa wins again."
And, honestly, I think a lot of that attitude stemmed from our coming from a culture and lifestyle that is very privileged and entitled. We were so used to having quick fixes right at our fingertips that we never really had to worry about anything. All we ever needed was a phone call or a quick drive to Walmart away.
Well, there are no Walmarts around here, and sometimes the places we go don't have phone service. Those things by themselves would be (and have been) enough to make a person snap. But, here we are, five plus years on the mission field, and we've learned to just make the lemonade.
We left on a Thursday for a three day weekend trip to the bush for one of our church associations annual meetings. Nicholas has traveled to this area several times, but I've only been to one of the churches one time. So, many of these people had never even met me, and none of them had ever met Evangeline. We haven't done a whole lot of trips like this with Nicholas, because 98% of the times we have tried it turned into complete nightmares. But, I wanted to go on this trip, even though we would be over four hours away from home with no guarantee that the weekend wouldn't be spent in a sleep deprived state trying to hold on to my sanity while chasing after a toddler all day, every day. At least people would be able to see that Nicholas actually did have a family and wasn't just making us up ;-)
Anyway, after almost a week of me being sick with scarlet fever I was finally on the mend, and so we packed up and headed out. We got to the church conference grounds (aka "misasa" or campsite) later in the afternoon and pulled out our tent to start setting things up. And, that's when we noticed the mold. Now, mold is no one's friend, but I happen to be highly allergic to the stuff, and it can easily cause my asthma to flair up to the point where I can't breath very well. Soooo, talk about some lemons.
Apparently, the last time we had used the tent was a month before at a church youth conference. We had camped out for a couple of nights before packing up the dew-covered tent and heading out to a two-week meeting. By the time we got back home, several weeks had passed and we didn't think twice about tossing the tent back into the storage room. Without cleaning it. Fast forward a month, and here we are. But, like I said before... what are you going to do?
Thankfully, church members had already set up grass shelters for sleeping in, and they let us use one. So, we used our ground tarp as a roof, used a chitenge as a door, pulled out a pop-up mosquito net tent that we keep in the truck, and set up mattresses in our new abode. And now I think I prefer this to the tent :-)
Plus, it was a bit cooler than the tent would have been, which made Evangeline's nap times in the afternoon much better (and longer)!
Lemonade.
The weekend turned out to be really great despite the unexpected start. We were able to spend time with church members who don't see us often, Evangeline made some new friends, believers were equipped with the Word, and there was even one woman who received salvation!
It took three days, but I was finally able to get home to the hairbrush that I forgot and untangle the rats nest that was my hair... and home was where I was able to get some relief from the multitude of bug bites I received (thank you anti-itch spray). It was also where we could get a good night's sleep without sharing a bed with a wriggly toddler. Sometimes you can make your lemonade on the spot, like with our "housing situation". And, other times you may have to wait a while before you can add in the sugar, like with the tangled hair, bug bites, and sleep deprivation.
Lemonade, y'all. When life gives you lemons, just make the lemonade.