Girls in el Delta
In any new job it's easy to be assailed by doubts: do I know what I'm doing? Is it effective? Am I using my skills? Am I being appropriately humble and trusting and non-forceful about my opinions as an outsider, or am I just not doing anything? Dealing with these issues in yet another new job, I have found myself falling into self-pity occasionally, which Corrie ten Boom calls "a very respectable sin, logical and convincing, and places self on the throne."Yesterday I went with my friend Lidia to visit another friend's sister who has been confined to bed for a year and a half due to illness. I ended up leaving the two of them to talk and went into the living room with Isidora, a Paraguayan woman that helps her during the week. She had recently gotten some blood work done and hadn't had a doctor's visit yet (here they go to the lab or x-ray or ultrasound, get their own results or films and then take them to their doctor), so I explained some of her lab results and then we got to talking. She was clearly distracted, and it turned out she was having a hard time being away from her country and most of her family during her culture's biggest holiday week. She came to Argentina nearly a year ago both to find work and get away from her abusive husband, and had left five of her seven children with him. She described to me the typical holiday activities, which primarily involve lots of family get-togethers especially on Thursday and Sunday.
It turns out she's only one year older than me. She was amazed that I have no children and have never been married. I told her that I can't imagine how sad it would be to leave children behind, and of course she can't imagine what it's like to be childless. We then started talking about Paul, who wrote a lot of the letters in the Bible. He'd dealt with shipwrecks, beatings, imprisonment, being left for dead, etc. He also wrote one of the new churches (1 Thessalonians 5:16-17): Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances....
We started talking about how when we start giving thanks for things, we realize we really have a lot to be thankful for. She has a good job and two of her children here and she's no longer living in an abusive relationship. I've gotten to travel and meet so many new people and be a part of wonderful ministries.
We're funny creatures. I've discovered I can get mired in self-pity even for living in a big city in a decent apartment rather than in the middle of a jungle. That's strange enough, but then I had a funky health problem and I was fine attitude-wise -- I think we are given extra grace in some situations. On my latest trip to Salta I encountered bugs I'd apparently never met before. Two weird things: (1) the bites didn't itch at all until day four, which was thankfully after I returned home. Here's a picture at day seven:
