Frustration is allowed

I was in the middle of dicing up a sweet potato for dinner. The light blinked off and the fan silenced. I think my exclamation was something along the lines of, "You've got to be kidding me!" The electricity had finally just been restored a couple hours earlier after a tree had taken out the power lines over 24hrs ago.

Power went out mid-afternoon on Wednesday. Earlier than normal for the usual daily power outages we've had thus far, but we adapted. The battery powered light/fan in the picture above was a suggestion from a fellow missionary... and we are so thankful for it. It has been incredibly useful, again, see photo above.

However, when we woke up this morning still without power, figured something was up. Sure enough, a tree was the culprit. Again we make do, dry bread for breakfast, etc. We figured the contents of the refridgerator were probably past help at that point, but why make a sad situation worse and open the door.

I think the whole town of Balfate rejoiced when the power came back on this afternoon. The teachers at El Camino shared stories that their classrooms erupted with cheers! Being without power is hard on everyone.

Jake and I were so excited to be able to open our refrigerator and see what we could salvage. Everything in the freezer was completely thawed. But we finally had power, which ment we could turn our lights on, and we had WiFi back, and the fan would work again.

Frustration was definitely behind my exclamation when the power went out again. Jake handled his frustration moderately better than I. He was in the middle of chopping onions and laid down the knife pausing to stare at the ceiling rather than voice his thoughts. I checked on the Balfate Informe facebook page to see the most recent update that a team trying to clear the power lines had ended up cutting a branch that had fallen taking out the power lines. Frustration mounted again at the prospect of yet another 24hours without power. I finished cutting that sweet potato until extra-diced.

We headed to Praise and Fellowship night at the Cabildo (building beside the hospital) sharing a pep-talk between ourselves. We knew that we would be just fine. We would survive another 24hrs without if that was how long it took. Our frustration at the present predicament and the difficulty not having electricity added to our life does not change the fact that Jesus is Holy. He is good and He loves us. I think everyone must have shared in the same pep-talk as the singing was with extra gusto this evening.

As we made our way up the mountain afterwards, we were very thankful to see light coming from our windows as we approached home. In the end it had only been off for about 3 hours this time, not 24. Now granted it has gone off three more times since we've been home, but lasted a few minutes only each time. Thank you Jesus!

We look forward to when the container finally arrives. Update: The container is scheduled to finally leave Biloxi, MS next Tuesday Sept 16th. Yes, that same container we had rushed to make a deadline by June (see here).... still hasn't even left Biloxi yet. Happy it will be on its way to Honduras soon and with it a battery bank and generator!

Much Love.