Mad. 11

7-9-10

This morning when I went outside my bedroom I saw a rainbow in the sky. This is the third time this week that I have seen a rainbow in Betroky. I feel as though it's a sign of God's promise to draw the Malagasy- and specifically the Bara- to himself.

Being here, I'm beginning to grasp the concept of "cooking from scratch." Yesterday we made spaghetti and meatballs... we had to cute and mash all the tomatoes for the sauce, boil them, and put in all the spices. There were no cans of tomato sauce or even cans of crushed tomatoes. Thankfully we didn't have to make our own noodles. Marc and Stacy have to make their own yogurt, salad dressing, peanut butter, and vanilla. So I'm beginning to understand the time it takes simply to cook a couple meals a day.

Even taking a "shower" is a feat, here. Stacy usually boils water and fills up canisters with the hot water. Then, I take one of them into the bath house and put half a container of hot water with the other half cold and use a wash cloth to soak my body. When that container is empty I repeat the process until I feel I am satisfactorily clean... or I've run out of hot water. But I usually wash my hair first to be sure I have enough water to rinse. There is a shower head with running water, but it's freezing cold. Since it is winter here, it's cold enough as it is. The wind blows right through the cracks in the door and the door doesn't even cover the entire opening of the doorway. So I try to get through the process of bathing as quickly as possible. But at least I'm not wasting gallons of water like I normally do in the States. And since it's such a complicated and cold process, I shower only every other day and sometimes every other two days. Marc and Stacy said they bathed in the river while living in the village their first two years. That's usually what the Malagasy do here, as well. But you just never know what diseases you'll get...

Stacy gave me a couple books to read while I'm here and there's a really good quote from one of them that I read earlier: "Whatever one does on the mission field will almost always take more time and effort than a similar activity at home." (On Being a Missionary by Thomas Hale)