My To Do List

I am a list maker by nature.  I love lists….  I love to make them, I love to cross things off of them, I love the feeling at the end of the day when everything is marked off:  I LOVE lists.  I am a fairly organized person, and very task oriented.  That serves me well as a nurse and as a team leader.  It sometimes gets in the way, however, living in a society that is neither list nor time nor task oriented.  I like routine (I know, you are thinking – WHY do you live in a small village in Africa?).  

I like it when my schedule stays kind of the same: get up and have coffee and quiet time with God, talk with my husband over breakfast, clean my house, visit with people, write emails and do other business type things,  treat sick people, relax with my husband, go to bed.  I am a pretty simple girl!

Often, one of my biggest sources of frustration in the village is when I am involved in a task and I get “interrupted”.   

A few weeks ago, Jim and I got called out early in the morning to go and see the chief, who was quite sick.  We had not had coffee or eaten yet- but we went.  I assessed his status, gave him some medicine, instructed the family to take him to the hospital, prayed for him, and then we came home.  The whole event took about an hour.  But by the time we got home, there were other people waiting for us and we never had a chance to complete our usual morning routine.  Both Jim and I felt a little out of sorts the whole day.

But last week was the WORST.  I decided a few weeks back that I wanted to repaint the inside of our house.  Now, I hate painting  with a passion – all the taping and moving of furniture and prep work – but I love the look of freshly painted walls.  The whole project filled my husband with dread.  He knows how one home improvement project leads to another, which leads to another.  You know the story – we started painting and that led to me asking Jim to fill in a chunk of concrete that had fallen out of the wall around a window.   

After the painting was done and looked fresh and clean, I noticed that the light fixtures were filthy – so those had to be cleaned.  Then I wanted to hang the new curtains that I had bought in the US, but the curtain rods were too big in diameter.  I went to trade some out of the school house, but those were too long.  So we had to cut them to the right length (and by we, I mean Jim).  I also noticed cobwebs on the ceiling and needed Jim’s help to sweep them down.  And of course, fresh paint also made my windows look dirty, so I decided to wash them – but I CLEARLY couldn’t  hang dirty curtains back up on clean windows, so those needed to be washed as well.  Get the picture???

Anyway, we started painting and people kept coming.  Some were sick, some wanted to chat, and some came for other various reasons.  With each interruption, I got more and more frustrated.   Seriously, almost every 15 – 20 minutes, someone else knocked at the door.  Now, if I were a “better” missionary, I would probably have been grateful for the opportunity to serve others.  I would have looked at each “interruption” as an opportunity to show Jesus’ love to people.  

 However, that was NOT EXACTLY my response.  I got madder and madder with each knock at the door.  Finally a woman who is a bit of a “thorn in my flesh” (are missionaries allowed to say things like that????) showed up with a sick person.  She had been to my house every day that week with a different sick person, asking me to make an exception for that person and to treat them (even though I was not treating patients until the clinic opened).  This person had an infected toe – I said, “Come back tomorrow.”  She tried again – can’t you help her right now?  I said, “Listen, I am working inside and you are the 20^th person who has come today.  I can’t finish what I am doing.  You need to come tomorrow!”   

She looked at me like I was crazy – like she understood my words, but wasn’t sure how they applied to her – and said, “This is the first time I have come today.”  I said, “Yes, but so have 20 other people.”  Again, she looked like she was searching for why that should matter to her.  I said, “Sorry, I know that you haven’t been here yet, but many other people have.  I am working in my house today and you will need to come back tomorrow.”  She finally left.  In my own defense, I really wasn’t supposed to be treating patients, and this woman was not deathly ill, and had already had the problem for a week, so I was quite sure that she could wait another 18 hours.  

However, my attitude needed a little fine-tuning.  I felt convicted and I ended up asking God to forgive me for putting projects ahead of people – a prayer that will NO DOUBT have to be repeated many times again.  I still love my lists –and I do see value in them.  And I know it is okay to want to get things done.  But I am working to not lump everybody into one big interruption and to see each person as an individual.  In some ways, that woman WAS right.  She had not been there bothering me all day.  It was not her fault that she was the 20^th person to show up – her needs were legitimate too.  

I have a long way to go and much to learn.  But in the meantime, I will go and mark this blog entry off my list of things to do today!  ;^)