Glamor

The life of a missionary is really glamorous.

I'm sorry, could you hear me laughing from the Southern Hemisphere?

Because seriously, there is pretty much nothing glamorous about our lives as missionaries.

The power goes out--often.
Part of our living room is occupied by suitcases full of ministry supplies. We love the ministry. We love the resources. But they're pretty much an eye-sore.
None of our clothes fit.
We are too poor to buy new clothes.
We are too poor for almost anything really.
Hot water is scarce, or it was before moving to Cusco. (Now we only don't have hot water when the power is out.)
I could go on and on, about stray dogs, dirt roads, and all kinds of things, but I won't.

Just don't believe that the life of a missionary is glamorous.

But I do have one pretty funny example for you.

Ester and I have been visiting people in San Jeronimo. This is the town where we live, so we know the roads fairly well. Ideally, we call the people to set up a visit, but there was an entire stack of contacts in San Jeronimo that didn't have phone numbers. So we set off to find these people and visit them or set up a time where we could come back and visit.

Here's the thing about San Jeronimo though: many, if not most, of the houses do not have numbers. Why? No idea, but tons of people tell us, "Calle tal, sin número." Whatever street, without a number. That's always fun to find. So we often wander around asking where such-and-such lives.

Or even better, they do have a number. So we start at the top of the street and work our way down looking for said house number.

And the numbers go 80, 78, 75, 166, 73, 65.

Or 6, 8, 10, 14, 16 while we are searching for number twelve, and it is missing! And then after we have given up on finding it, two blocks later, there's number twelve between 35 and 37!

Or on some of these streets will have two or three house number 21!

What?

It is enough to drive anyone crazy!!

So if you ever long for the adventure and glamor of living in another country as a missionary, just picture Ester and I wondering through San Jeronimo looking for Calle Lima 55, unable to find the people who went to a medical campaign months ago so that we can share the gospel with them.

Would I want any other job? No. Is it exciting and glamorous? Not always. Is God always faithful? Yes!