The title of this blog seems like it's vague, but it's really not. It's about dirty laundry.
You can imagine how smelly your clothes would get after 10+ days of not doing laundry when you're traveling around with a very limited wardrobe, holding poopy babies, showering every other day (maybe), walking through the streets of Guatemala, and sleeping in a tent… trust me, it's pretty gross. Our squad starts a regular laundry rotation today (Monday) where each team gets a different day to do laundry (that way we won't be fighting for the clotheslines). Anyways, my team and I decided to do our on Sunday because that's going to be our assigned laundry day for the coming week, and we needed to get it in before going another whole week in our already smelly clothes.
Dilemma: Rain, lack of abundant clothesline
Complication: All our clothes are now wet, no indication of sunshine or the rain stopping, and we need clothes to a) sleep in, and b) wear to ministry the next day- skirts/ shorts need to be at/below the knee and no tank tops without a sweater in this culture. At this point, it's freezing, I have on running shorts, a t-shirt, and a rain jacket. I also have a sarong, a pair of socks, and a swim suit that are dry.
This doesn't seem that bad, now that I’m writing about it, but I was pretty frustrated this day. Laundry became my obsession. Everyone was trying to figure out how to dry it, where to hang up another clothesline, if they could somehow rig something up in their tent… AND it was FREEZING! I didn't know Guatemala could be so cold! I ended up hanging most of it up in my tent (I'd post a picture, but I’m pretty sure nobody wants to see underwear city in my dirty tent), then risking it on the clothesline outside after it stopped raining sometime Sunday evening.
It's actually kind of ridiculous how frustrated and upset I felt. I was SO worried about how I would sleep that night, if I would have anything to wear the next day (there are 43 other women on my squad, I think I would've been covered)… I was shocked at my reaction to say the least.
My clothes eventually dried Monday morning (mostly… my fleece jacket still smells slightly mildew-y…). Anyways, I say all this because it was such a struggle between me and the Lord- a struggle that I wasn't expecting. I was all for this kind of stuff before I was actually on the Race. It's totally different to live through it.
The thing is, it's not bad to want warm, dry clothes. It's not bad to enjoy the comforts of home. But I was taking away my praise for the Lord in that time instead of praising Him through my frustration. I was so focused on my current dilemma and frustration than I was on loving the people around me and praising God for who He is and all He has done and all He is doing.
Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol Him, all peoples! For great is His steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord! – Psalm 117
