One Step at a Time

Saturday night I had one of my now-infrequent bouts of insomnia. Despite being very tired, I failed at falling asleep, so at about 2:00 a.m. I got up and read for a while. Which led to this:

No, I didn’t read the whole book in the middle of the night. I just finished it! I finally got to sleep sometime after 3:00.

For some reason I didn’t have much energy yesterday, but of course we still went to church and Sunday School, after which I took a nap. Flynn was busy picking up Tiffany from the airport in the afternoon, and Lina was busy I guess, so we just Zoomed with Spencer and Jade, who were in the car on their way to a Super Bowl party.

We did not go to a Super Bowl party, nor did we host one, nor did we have any interest in the game itself. We had a quiet Sunday afternoon and evening. I did watch a few minutes of the Olympics.

This morning I made sure to shower and dry my hair and get through quite a few chapters of Proverbs before we had our phone interview with a man from a mission support organization we’re interested in. I find these kinds of interviews excruciating. I know they’re necessary, and I genuinely want to learn as much as possible, but talking to a stranger on the phone is very stressful for an introvert like me.

I guess it went okay. We will progress to filling out an application and see what happens from there.

I was still recovering from that experience when I had to leave for the monthly lady missions meeting, which is another very stressful thing for me. I got there and found that many of the other ladies were wearing Valentines-themed clothes. And me? A dress with sea turtles on it. I honestly didn’t even think about the Valentines angle since it’s not a thing around here.

The presentation was on Japan. I would have liked to learn a lot more about what the featured missionary couple actually do there. I guess I was kind of hoping there’d be a point where I’d be having a conversation with someone, and could bring up the fact that we’re headed to the mission field ourselves, and that we’d really appreciate prayer. But this did not happen, and I am definitely not the kind of person to get everyone’s attention and make an announcement. *shudder*

So I drove home, focused on recovering from two challenging experiences in a row, only to receive a text from Walter asking if I could meet him on campus to sign some stuff. We finally have all the documents required for our Zambian work permits, and some of them had to be notarized, so he took them to a friend on campus who does that.

He didn’t tell me that the office I needed to find had moved, so I parked on one side of campus and then ended up walking clear to the other side after realizing I was in the wrong place. It was a warm walk. It was 82 degrees this afternoon! Walter’s friend had made high-quality copies of everything and then notarized them, but we both had to sign in her book.

So what did we have to submit for our work permits? Our birth certificates, our high school diplomas, our college diplomas, our passports (with copies of pages containing Zambian stamps) and our resumes. I’m still working on mine.

It was midafternoon by the time we returned home, and all my motivation to do anything at all had trickled away. So I watched some Olympics coverage while Walter worked on scanning all the notarized documents so he can email them to Amano tomorrow.

Well, I did do some critique group stuff. And after supper I made yet another batch of no-bake cookies because Jasper is having a movie marathon with a friend tomorrow, and I thought he should have something to contribute.

I’m still struggling internally with the change from thinking of moving to Zambia as “maybe someday” to “later this year.” Sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed with everything that has to be done.

Finally, I would appreciate prayer for my dad. He’s been in the hospital since Saturday afternoon. The incision from his back surgery at the end of December has gotten infected and he is being treated with intravenous antibiotics.

Joy Spark: Yesterday’s joy spark was talking to Spencer and Jade. Today’s was walking on campus in the sunshine. What a beautiful day.

Parting Shot:

On campus this afternoon.