It could have been worse

I woke up to the sound of voices, two of my coworkers and one national guy. I wondered what was going on, as it was still the middle of the night. Hearing our vent fan running, I thought it must be our neighbor from upstairs complaining about it being left on. I had thought it was a little weird that he was complaining this late; then I slowly came to the realization that there must be something more to what was going on.

I heard a knock on my door, and Clive called my name, so I got up. Still not really knowing what was going on, I put my feet down off the bed and stepped into a puddle. Then it hit me. Our apartment was at least partly flooded. I quickly opened the door to figure out what happened and started helping clean up the water.

The next morning only 3 or so hours later, I was informed of what happened. The water supply hose for our new washer had come off in the middle of the night, and our neighbor from downstairs had heard the water rushing and woke us up and help clean it up. I don’t know what would have happened if he hadn’t come. I am sure it would have been worse.

This story, which happen last night, is an example of sorts of how things have been going so far. We have had our struggles, but we have also had favor and help. We have decided that the phrase “It could have been worse” has come to be our motto. It’s not so much that we have had a lot of bad things happen, but rather that we have had God’s favor with us, which has made things that would have otherwise been very bad a lot better.

We have gotten a lot done in the 2 ½ weeks we been here. We are all moved into our apartment, have started classes, and have done all of the complicated procedures for living off campus and getting our residence permits. My classes are very hard; I have about 4 hours of classes each weekday, and every bit of is in the local language, which is very hard for me. I’m very busy! Overall, things have been harder than what I had expected. Getting all of our stuff taken care of has taken a long time, and I feel things are just now settling down, and I have time to write to you all.

Regardless of everything that I have told you and what I haven’t, I am glad I have gone to this new city and am studying full time. I have already seen a lot of progress in my language ability, and I know that this city has massive potential for God’s kingdom.

I am excited for the road ahead. I know it will probably still be rocky, as we are still learning this new place and trying to understand our teachers, but I know it will still be good, as God has us here for a reason.

 -Rocky