Not as Developed as You'd Think
Lately more than ever I've felt like I'm living in the third world.
Praise Jesus- I got my cat back yesterday! The vet texted me and told me she was ready to "discharge." I came in after work, laden with bags and heavy clothes and my laptop, and I sat down behind the little table while he went in the back. The vet in Korea is very different than an American vet. It's a store the size of a large bathroom, and the wall facing the street is a glass window. There are small cubicles containing ADORABLE fluffy puppies and kittens. Yep, puppies in the window. How much? About $300. As you walk a few feet back, past walls covered in various bags of animal food and a middle display of toys and treats, there is a small red pleather bench facing an even smaller desk with a computer on it. This desk doubles as the counter on which animals are placed when the come in for checkups. The back room is a modest-sized walk in closet with cages and a steel table in the middle. (Yep- I've seen the back). Yong Shin (we know each other's names by now) returned from the back, an empathetic smile on his face, holding a very irritated, weary Leona. He set her on the table, and she pathetically threw herself at me- it was an awkward half-hug: her face and front paws were pressed against my chest, and her back feet were still on the table.
He told me to pay as much as I could, when I could, and gave me a $20 bag of organic food for free (he said it was her favorite). The grace of God... what the heck...
Anyways the third world part- this morning I finally admitted that the washing machine does little to wash clothes- all my whites are grey, and my shirts are all developing pit stains. (I wear deodorant, they're getting bleached from it). I took a bar of soap, filled the sink up with hot water, and went to work on some of my clothes. Moderate improvement! I wash all my dishes by hand every morning, woke up and started cooking rice to eat for lunch, and squatted down to sweep the kitchen floor.
Leona is too weak to use the litter box- the best she's done is to climb in and then plop down (never seen that before- seriously, there should be a documentary about this!) and so I've been washing the same blanket multiple times in a day.
I brought her in the shower (it's on the same level as the floor) to give her a bath (imagine what she's soaked in after spending seven days in a cage), and used one of my only bars of soap, and my only towel. She just laid there and didn't even bother to cry. After that I poured lemon-scented floor cleaner on the bathroom floor and cleaned that, on hands and knees, with a scrub brush.
On Thanksgiving I bought an entire chicken, attempted to cut it into meaningful pieces, and boiled it in a pot with some vegetables for two hours to make broth. I made mushroom risotto, stuffing, gravy, chicken, broccoli, cinnamon sugar apples, and macaroni and cheese- all from scratch, all without an oven, and all in the same two pots and single skillet.
That's right -DANG. Every day I'm a step closer to managing a life without conveniences every day.
Not to brush over Thanksgiving- it was incredible. We had it on Saturday. About eleven people showed up, half who had never celebrated the holiday before (Australia and Canada didn't exactly have the same pilgrim situation), and we had more food than we knew what to do with. I was so proud of everyone's cooking skills. Mashed potatoes, seven layer mexican dip (which wasn't cheap, avocadoes run about $6 each), rolls, butter and jelly, cheesecake, bottles and bottles of soda and wine, cookies, pasta salad... my table was so full we had to start putting stuff on my bench/windowsill. We ate from about 3:30 until 11. No joke. Jamie and I walked around with forks in our pockets (everyone knows the best part about Thanksgiving is sneaking back to the table when you finish eating the actual meal!)
This was also the weekend I discovered I have free movie channels- American movies up in the hundreds. IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE. In the past few days, I have watched Step Up One AND Two, Just Friends, The Alibi (yeah, I'd never heard of it either), Rush Hour 3, and The Illusionist. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? So that's the only not third-world part of my life lately. That little miracle. So we watched movies all day Saturday, straightened Meagan's hair (it took about two hours, and the boys finally reached their limit and left when we were finished), sat in the floor and ate cheesecake with chopsticks (also after the boys left), ate more food when another friend arrived with donuts, and did nothing else. Thanks for all your prayers.
I've been reading 1 Chronicles lately and chapter 16 is just the best... I'll leave you with some of it:
"Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; Make known among the nations what He has done, sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of His wonderful acts. Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles and the judgements He pronounced..."
Yeah so life is very simple, and sometimes fairly difficult, and never easy, and always challenging, but God is so available through it all and He encourages me every day. Tonight we had a Bible study and we talked about praying for things specifically. You know, the part where you ask God for what you want. I think most of us don't do that because we forget to ask (thinking we can work for it), or we've stopped thinking about those silly things a long time ago, or it seems like we should ask for more noble things like patience or faith. All that's good and well. But I think it's good too to be honest with God, and it's Christmas, and I think I'm going to start asking Him for what I need- the big things I can't handle like my dreams (much higher than goals), and what other people need (it's simple and impossible at the same time). It couldn't hurt. He won't love me any less.
We're splurging tonight and turning the heat on! This is because Leona is sleeping on the floor, and my only extra blanket/couch cover and towel are already wet.
Praise Jesus- I got my cat back yesterday! The vet texted me and told me she was ready to "discharge." I came in after work, laden with bags and heavy clothes and my laptop, and I sat down behind the little table while he went in the back. The vet in Korea is very different than an American vet. It's a store the size of a large bathroom, and the wall facing the street is a glass window. There are small cubicles containing ADORABLE fluffy puppies and kittens. Yep, puppies in the window. How much? About $300. As you walk a few feet back, past walls covered in various bags of animal food and a middle display of toys and treats, there is a small red pleather bench facing an even smaller desk with a computer on it. This desk doubles as the counter on which animals are placed when the come in for checkups. The back room is a modest-sized walk in closet with cages and a steel table in the middle. (Yep- I've seen the back). Yong Shin (we know each other's names by now) returned from the back, an empathetic smile on his face, holding a very irritated, weary Leona. He set her on the table, and she pathetically threw herself at me- it was an awkward half-hug: her face and front paws were pressed against my chest, and her back feet were still on the table.
He told me to pay as much as I could, when I could, and gave me a $20 bag of organic food for free (he said it was her favorite). The grace of God... what the heck...
Anyways the third world part- this morning I finally admitted that the washing machine does little to wash clothes- all my whites are grey, and my shirts are all developing pit stains. (I wear deodorant, they're getting bleached from it). I took a bar of soap, filled the sink up with hot water, and went to work on some of my clothes. Moderate improvement! I wash all my dishes by hand every morning, woke up and started cooking rice to eat for lunch, and squatted down to sweep the kitchen floor.
Leona is too weak to use the litter box- the best she's done is to climb in and then plop down (never seen that before- seriously, there should be a documentary about this!) and so I've been washing the same blanket multiple times in a day.
I brought her in the shower (it's on the same level as the floor) to give her a bath (imagine what she's soaked in after spending seven days in a cage), and used one of my only bars of soap, and my only towel. She just laid there and didn't even bother to cry. After that I poured lemon-scented floor cleaner on the bathroom floor and cleaned that, on hands and knees, with a scrub brush.
On Thanksgiving I bought an entire chicken, attempted to cut it into meaningful pieces, and boiled it in a pot with some vegetables for two hours to make broth. I made mushroom risotto, stuffing, gravy, chicken, broccoli, cinnamon sugar apples, and macaroni and cheese- all from scratch, all without an oven, and all in the same two pots and single skillet.
That's right -DANG. Every day I'm a step closer to managing a life without conveniences every day.
Not to brush over Thanksgiving- it was incredible. We had it on Saturday. About eleven people showed up, half who had never celebrated the holiday before (Australia and Canada didn't exactly have the same pilgrim situation), and we had more food than we knew what to do with. I was so proud of everyone's cooking skills. Mashed potatoes, seven layer mexican dip (which wasn't cheap, avocadoes run about $6 each), rolls, butter and jelly, cheesecake, bottles and bottles of soda and wine, cookies, pasta salad... my table was so full we had to start putting stuff on my bench/windowsill. We ate from about 3:30 until 11. No joke. Jamie and I walked around with forks in our pockets (everyone knows the best part about Thanksgiving is sneaking back to the table when you finish eating the actual meal!)
This was also the weekend I discovered I have free movie channels- American movies up in the hundreds. IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE. In the past few days, I have watched Step Up One AND Two, Just Friends, The Alibi (yeah, I'd never heard of it either), Rush Hour 3, and The Illusionist. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? So that's the only not third-world part of my life lately. That little miracle. So we watched movies all day Saturday, straightened Meagan's hair (it took about two hours, and the boys finally reached their limit and left when we were finished), sat in the floor and ate cheesecake with chopsticks (also after the boys left), ate more food when another friend arrived with donuts, and did nothing else. Thanks for all your prayers.
I've been reading 1 Chronicles lately and chapter 16 is just the best... I'll leave you with some of it:
"Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; Make known among the nations what He has done, sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of His wonderful acts. Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles and the judgements He pronounced..."
Yeah so life is very simple, and sometimes fairly difficult, and never easy, and always challenging, but God is so available through it all and He encourages me every day. Tonight we had a Bible study and we talked about praying for things specifically. You know, the part where you ask God for what you want. I think most of us don't do that because we forget to ask (thinking we can work for it), or we've stopped thinking about those silly things a long time ago, or it seems like we should ask for more noble things like patience or faith. All that's good and well. But I think it's good too to be honest with God, and it's Christmas, and I think I'm going to start asking Him for what I need- the big things I can't handle like my dreams (much higher than goals), and what other people need (it's simple and impossible at the same time). It couldn't hurt. He won't love me any less.
We're splurging tonight and turning the heat on! This is because Leona is sleeping on the floor, and my only extra blanket/couch cover and towel are already wet.
I'm so happy your cat is alive and with you! Also, it's nice that you got to celebrate Thanksgiving. And maybe you're putting too many clothes in your little washing machine?
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