Gratitude

Alright.. here's a gratitude list that Abbie wrote for her blog.. I helped!! and we both agree on all of them pretty much.. some things are easier to be grateful for living in the city, and others more grateful for living in the country.. haha. Surprisingly, the technology is one that we have less in the city!! Not because its the city, but simply because Josh and I don't have cell phones yet, or access to the internet outside of work. Anyhow.. here it is!

1 Week 2 Days

Certain opportunities in life make you extremely grateful for certain things. This is what we (as the Utah State Seed “obronis” in Ghana) have decided we are grateful for.

1. Milk – good ol’ hometown milk straight (or relatively straight) from the cow. We don’t care if it’s whole milk, 2% or skim, we will never take it for granted again. The only milk you can get here is evaporated milk or UHT (Ultra Heat Treated) milk – not the greatest for drinking or even eating cold cereal with.

2. Cheese – they just don’t have it. Luckily for us, Joey and Emily had heard that it’s non-existent here and they actually brought some. The only problem is that it’s so hot here and the refrigerators aren’t cold enough to keep it “hard”, so eating slices of it is completely out of the question – it can only be used in food where it melts – so that is still something we’re allowed to miss.

3. Brownies, cakes, doughnuts, muffins – ANYTHING with flour in it that is sweet and baked.

4. Ice, slushies, ice cream, popsicles or anything that we would LOVE on a hot, sweaty day. It’s basically unheard of to find something REALLY COLD here.

5. Smooth, dry skin, and really, just DRY! Everything is wet and sticky. Pretty sure we haven’t had a time here where we don’t have a couple drops of sweat somewhere… GROSS! And if that wasn’t enough, the bug spray makes the clammy humid feeling STICKY. YUM!

6. Not having to worry about cultural norms. At some point we’ll figure out the African culture completely… hopefully.

7. A blow dryer and straightener – both of which we COULD use, but do absolutely NO good!

8. Texting… (from Lindsie) – a sign of a social life and an easy time waster.

9. Paved, smooth and working roads. We won’t ever complain about the crack in the road or even the Utah construction anymore.

10. Drinkable tap water – what a luxury!

11. A shower curtain or shower that you can actually stand up in. Our shower has no curtain and the cord to the shower is too short to be able to stand up and reach your head, so you have to crouch.

12. English – American English – (all grammar included) – ‘nuf said

13. Washer and dryer. We actually DO have a washer here, but it leaks like crazy, and then there’s no dryer, so it all has to hang outside until it dries and you have to pray it doesn’t rain while you’re waiting.

14. Snow-capped, rocky mountains. A sign of cool weather.

15. Blending in – we don’t have a prayer!

16. Air conditioning and really, anything that would cool you down. Don’t think I’ve ever been so hot for so long in my life.

17. Power. Consistent, reliable, anytime, cheap power. The last 2 days we have been powerless for who knows how many hours. Today it went out at 10am (while we were at church) and didn’t come back on until after 6pm, and yesterday was about the same story. It was the worst at church though – I’ve never gotten so hot and tired so quickly – those fans are a definite MUST! And anytime it rains or even threatens to rain (which is also quite often) the power also goes off. So basically, you have to take advantage of the power you get.

Anyway, these are just a few of the things we are so grateful to have in our lives. We may not have them right now, but knowing they exist and someday will have them back makes us even more thankful for them.

But no worries – we love it here. It is such a wonderful opportunity for us to be here, and we are grateful for the many things we have been able to learn. We know that God has had a hand in getting us here and know that He will be with us the whole way.