Today marks only five days left in our home away from home, Placencia, Belize. Much like the puzzle to the left, God placed many pieces together for us in our life puzzle while here. Can you see that there is a piece still missing in the upper right hand corner? Walking by faith, we trust that God will reveal the last piece. During acclimation, we learned to do without many of the conveniences we left behind. We find ourselves asking what part of that simplicity of our Central American
Walden will we take back with us. Or, what will we continue to do without?
We learned to go without convenience foods, with the exception of using canned beans instead of soaking my own, I cook everything from scratch. The kids do not have programs, activities, clubs, bi-monthly homeschooling classes, or lessons without detriment. Until recently, we did not have a vehicle, but one is not needed on the peninsula except for the rare occasion of heading out for a work issue or the days of site-seeing with our visitors.
What we considered conveniences or necessary in the States really are not. We discovered that many, if not all of them are hindrances to what really matters; being available and having meaningful relationships. Our puzzles have been filled with lives and time with others. Mom II sat on our porch daily to people watch and she always wanted to know what the people here talk about all day long. Life.
Going shopping more often and by foot affords me time saying hello to my neighbors. I have conversations with my grocers and since they are the same people and not some rotating person with a name badge, I can take a real interest in their life and they in mine. They remember that I am the oil man's wife. They know which house is mine. They know who my kids are. I know the names of the waiter and waitress at my two favorite restaurants.
The kids have been given the gift of boredom. I do not succeed daily in giving this as the electronic devices do creep back in, but they have learned to secretly like some of it. We took on the pet project of growing the avocado tree in the beer mug. Look at the leaves and roots! (Free to good home!) My husband brought to me my favorite bouquet of all time. Its picture is above. He hand-crafted it from coral and tumblestones found on the caye we visited with new friends last weekend. Before school one morning 2 of the kids were playing with these plastic bags and watching how the airflow from the oscillating floor fans, the ceiling fans and the air conditioners affected where or how they would float or land. What child being run from play practice to lunch to school to lessons to youth group has the time to think about any of these things let alone DO them?
I looked up our calendar, that we keep online, to see what we had upcoming upon our arrival. There were at least 5 items. When I received an email this week about setting time aside for just one more thing, I cracked.
Many times at home, all of us scratch our heads and say we want to get together, but can't ever find the time. We determine that we are
over scheduled with many of the things I mentioned above--much of the time even more considering we as a family on average still have half the activities as other families. I would argue that we are simply scheduled. What would your day look like if you had no calendar? No activities lined up. No band or sport practices. No games. No club meetings. No youth group. No
fill in the blank. What if you were simply available for whatever came up? What if you were ready to have a God appointed meeting with the new couple at church and could have the time to take them to dinner? What if you could call friends at the last minute to play cards? What if you had the freedom to do anything that just pops up? What if?
We can. My brother-in-law in Ohio put it to my husband like this, "What would you do if there were no "have-to's"?" We create many of those "have-to's". I've marked off all but two of those items on my calendar. The two I kept are times we get to spend with our friends and family when we really get to visit with one another.
Perhaps we all need to have missing puzzle pieces so that there is always room for the unexpected.
