During my time so far in Africa, I’ve noticed two mottos that are embraced by those who live in Africa. Here’s motto number one: “Change of plans! Never mind.” This first motto (and the exact quote is compliments of Carolyn, my 12th grader) is important to embrace early on as power outages and other events can daily throw a hinge in plans. In the span of five minutes, one can go from plan A to plan D and back to plan A again. As I have mentioned before, flexibility is key.
Today, for example, we started the school day off with no power. Now, power is quite essential for school when three out of four classes are taught via DVD. So one of the moms called her husband and asked him to bring the generator down to school. I was able to start off without power, beginning the day with Bible class, and then moving to English with both grades. 10th grade had a literature test today, so they worked on that while Carolyn and I read some Chaucer. While the girls were taking their test, one of the dads came and set up the generator. Almost as soon as the girls finished their test (and we were ready to turn on the generator), the power came back on. Back to plan A!
Carolyn came up with this motto this afternoon when A wanted to practice piano on the Loescher’s keyboard. A asked if she could practice. Then we realized the power was out, so obviously practicing an electric keyboard wouldn’t work. This realization resulted in the quote, “Change of plans.” Within seconds the power flicked back on: “Never mind!”
Motto number two: “There’s always room for one more.” This motto applies in nearly any situation, from inviting people over for dinner to loading people into a car. Sundays bring anywhere from ten to twenty people over to the Loescher’s for lunch. We always have more than enough food for everyone! Applying this motto to today, after school, we loaded twelve people and a generator into a Pajero in order to bring everyone home. That may not sound like a lot of people (and admittedly, most of those people were only half-grown), but we were quite crammed. The front passenger seat alone had three people!
Despite what you may think, living by these mottos makes life all the more fun. No two days are really ever the same, so I’m thankful for the variety! And God is always good and gives us the grace we need to help us be flexible on days we go from plan A to plan Q.
