Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Day 2: The Big Fight on the Very Stressful Day


Day 2:
Blue mountain coffee in the morning.
Orientation at the office. It was not the most fun I've had in my life. You see, I'm a HIGH D personality, which means I like information to be giving to me succinctly with no additives, quick bullet points. My information should look like a powerpoint, not a lecture. Yet, orientation was given by various people, most of whom filled my information with additives. I found this to be quite stressful. Most often, I'm capable of being patient. But after two hours, I was on the verge of a breakdown. 
Now one of my problems here was, I had a checklist. When I have a checklist, my brain says "CHECK ALL THE THINGS!!!!!" And wants to win doing it, which means do it as quickly as possible. This is not possible with information additives. More stress.
The best part was finance. I went in and told Kathy that I needed to be oriented. She told me that she didn't know how to do that, so I looked at my checklist. "OK, tell me how to ____________" and she did. "Great, tell me how to _________" and she did. And we went through 1/4 of the checklist with no additives and in 5 mins. It was beautiful. 

In the afternoon, I worked on some excel documents and meal planning for the bush. But I went home exhausted and worn.
Now my otherwise amazing husband has this flaw. He's not good at being sick. He's one of those sick people. The people who like to be coddled in the their sickness, but when they don't feel like they're being coddled enough, remind people that they are sick, and tend to be slightly more exaggeratory of the circumstances. Now some such people are such people sick or well. Luckily my husband only has such tendencies when he's sick or hurting.
Now otherwise amazing me has this flaw. I'm not good at being tolerant. "Bemoaning how sick you are doesn't make you any less sick so shut up and stop making me sick!"
As you can see, it's a great combination. Luckily Jacob isn't sick or hurt often. 
Now my husband has this sore on the inside of his mouth. The kind that hurts if your drink is too acidic or your food too salty or whatever. Well, he was eating passionfruit and I suggested he suck the sweet snot like substance off the sours seeds and spit the seeds.
Well my husband must have had a stressful day too because he was particularly …insistent about his pain.
"Ow!"
Oh, yeah Jacob has that sore. I guess spitting wasn't all together pleasant…
"I can't! I can’t suck the seeds out! It hurts my mouth!!" with a very serious and intense face. (Thinking about a 5 yr old doing this is so adorable, it makes me laugh out loud. Alas, my husband is not 5 and so that was not my response.)
Now, I'm already unsympathetic in these situations. Any sympathy I did have for the suffering promptly evaporates upon what we call "milking it." And let's add to this: my stress. And my sleep deprivation. I woke at 4. Did NOT get a nap. And am so tired an hour will pass and it will be bedtime.
But I tried. I said jokingly so it didn't come off as attacking, practically laughing the words out of my mouth, "You are the most irritating sick person I have ever met!! Except! My sister, Andrea. When she was younger, she would lie on the couch with a belly ache and flail her arms and legs wildly, moaning loudly, just so we wouldn't forget that she was sick! And I would just think, "That's not making you feel any better, probably worse, now be quiet so I can watch TV!""
My objective here was "Honey, you're annoying me. You kind of remind me of OMG HERE’S A FUNNY STORY ABOUT ANDREA ISN’T THAT HILARIOUS!?!?!?” And there's no reason to reply to the first part because I already did a segue away from it!
But Jacob didn't take my segue and got defensive which made me livid, because I'm having a really stressful day!!!!
When Jacob saw my very intense anger, he apologized for getting defensive. (Please refer to Gottman concerning the gravity of the offense of being defensive. It's very bad!)
But I was past I'm-sorry-fixes-all. I'm angry and I've had a very stressful day!!

So I wanted to do something to completely ignore  Jacob, at whom I angry. So I go to grab my Kindle to read. It is dead. Despite the fact that it was fully charged before I left the US and off until that moment. It was dead. I threw down the kindle in disgust. And decide I want coffee. So I go to make coffee. We have a this annoying electric kettle, that doesn’t seem to tell you when it’s done. So I had lukewarm coffee with a ton of grounds. (I don't know how that happened. I used the french press like always… I don't know.) OK. So I go to take a shower. THE HOT WATER HEATER HAD BEEN TURNED OFF!!!!!WHY?!?!?! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!?!?!?!?  So I storm out of the bathroom (oh and of course my little angry cloud has gotten bigger and bigger at each frustrating inconvenience. Do you remember Hurricane Isabel? Yeah, if she saw me coming, she would step back) So I go back to my coffee, to see if the grounds had settled so it would be drinkable. They had not. (I was told that in a tin can, you could knock the side of the can with a spoon and the coffee grounds would drop to the bottom "as if stunned". I tried this. It didn't work.) So, in my anger, I went to rip open the screen door. Locked. (Ironic, because I think the door being locked when Jacob wanted it unlocked caused him frustration that his pain added to that resulted in the melodramatic display that brought on this hurricane. And then he locked the door causing me more frustration. (he QUICKLY apologized for locking it)) So I grab the key. Unlock the door. Replaced the keys on the table. Aggressively throw my coffee out in disdain. Retrieve the key. Relock the door. I then went to the room and this hurricane’s rain came forth. Menawhile the shower was dripping in such away that would result in my loss of sanity.
Jacob came in after a while. Sat in silence. Then started rubbing my back. I tensed in rejection. I'm still angry at him. But he didn’t notice. And it felt good. And I figured nursing a grudge never got me anywhere. So I confided in my husband, listing the things that had gone wrong since ignoring him had begun.
And then he left.
He stopped the drip, brought me ground-free coffee, and alerted me as to when the hot water had returned.
As I said, he has that flaw, but otherwise, he's amazing.

The number one reason missionaries leave the field is interpersonal problems. It's super important to forgive and choose to not stay angry and to have open communication. And to be aware. Stressful days result in fighting. Maybe some completely alone time is appropriate on those days. Avoid circumstances that often lead into sin. 

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

In Transit

Well I guess it's probably time for an update.
The 16hr flight wasn't nearly as torturous as it sounds. I slept about 13 hrs of it which was fantastic! When I wasn't sleeping, I watched Mirror Mirror and concluded the last 1:30hr of the flight with back to back episodes of Bones.
We landed in Brisbane, and played cards until the flight to Port Moresby , PNG.
3 hrs there and we were picked up by a jolly national who drove us to the SIL guesthouse. We received our key, went to our room, observed the six beds available (decided against the  bunkbeds), and passed out in the double. We had set our alarm for dinner time and stumbled into the dining hall to be greeted with the other missionaries staying there and shepherds pie! The conversation was delightful and dessert was an ice cream float! (vanilla ice cream and orange mango soda!)
After supper we went back to our rooms and crashed again.
This was a mistake. It was 7:30.
So at 2:20 am, I convinced my husband to get up with me, brew some delicious Blue Mountain coffee, and sit on the patio with me to play cards. Eventually he was tired of cards, so we went inside and I played solitaire on the bed. (For someone who wasn't interested in playing cards, he sure had a lot to say about how I was playing!)
But per usual, 7:30am rolled around and we were on our way back to the airport.
When we pulled up to passenger drop-off, there was a police van with a national woman in the back. She had long dreads that lashed about as she rocked back and forth violently, throwing herself forward and yanking herself back. A crowd swarmed and people from all over the area, inside, streetside, in the parking lot, flooded to this location. The crowd shifted from the police van and it was empty, which leads me to believe  that she was moved from inside the van to inside the crowd, working her way inside the airport.
Our driver decided it would be wise for us to stay inside the vehicle while the crowd was at large, but eventually they dispersed and we got out. Our objective was a luggage cart. We had seen them when the crowd was thick but now there were none to be found. So our driver sent us in the airport to get one. The security guard sent us through security to get one. The people on the other side of security sent us to the far side of ticketing, but eventually we found one.
When we made it through security again, with our luggage this time, we approached the tv screen displaying flights to discover there wasn't one leaving for Madang!!!!!
Dun dun dun!!!
Now, Jacob and I are $550 short from our budget. What we do not need is additional expenses. Like another night in Port Moresby. So I go to the ticket counter and they ease my anxiety, informing me that there is a plane to Madang (they just don't always update the screen), and ticketing for it would begin when they hung a sign saying Madang from over a register. So we sat and waited. And when the sign was hung, we stood at waited. For an hour. (the concept of single file and turn taking is apparently foreign.) 
When we got to the counter the woman asked me if I had filled out some form. No one had told me I had needed to fill out a form, not even the PNG website from which I had bought the tickets. And I don't know why I needed a form, I had made it in the country with PNG's approval, I'm pretty sure I can now move about the country freely. But she insisted there was a form that needed to be filled out. I told her that I probably hadn't done so. She huffed and puffed for a while but eventually gave us tickets anyway. I really have no idea what happened there.
We had to pay $65 for extra baggage. And then we moved to go through security (again). They asked to weigh Jacob's carry-on (which is WAY lighter than mine) and it was twice the permissible weight. They told me we'd have to check our carry-ons.
There are multiple problems here.
  1. It's half an hour til our flight. I do not have another hour I can wait in line for.
  1. I have four laptops, 2 kindles, 4 cell phones, 1 camera, & 3 external hard drives, in the carry-on's all of which was very important to not get stolen, which isn't very controllable when it get's checked on to the plane.
  1. I do not need to incur any further expenses!!
So I did what I do best. I can rock it in America, and baby, I can rock it in PNG.
I combined fear, sadness,  confusion, and innocence in a perfectly proportioned blend on my face. And asked "what? What do I have to do?!"
He then let us through. Many people find causing a pretty young lady unnecessary stress is morally wrong, and this man was, luckily, no exception. So instead of sending us away, he escorted us through security and saw us on our way!

We got to Madang (finally!!!!), grabbed our luggage and loaded up, with half the branch to the Madang Lodge for pizza!
They dropped us at the house, we showered (finally!!!) and then they picked us up again to go to the office. After some internet time, sing and share began at 6. And my poor jet lagged husband kept falling asleep during prayer. Finally, 7:30 we went to bed and lo and behold, 2:20 is when we woke up. But this time I worked on falling back asleep and finally got out of bed at 4. 

Thursday, September 6, 2012

On our way

I'm sitting at the gate in DFW International airport, staring at my HUGE plane. I mean HUGE!!! It's an hour til boarding and my energy level is sinking. (which is fantastic, because low energy is just where you want to be on an 18 hr flight!!) 
This morning I woke up and finished packing. I was ready to go at 12 but it wasn't time to get in the car until 6 so I had a great deal of time to twiddle my thumbs. ...or so I thought. 
About half way through this lull in my day, I got a phone call saying the gift I was counting on to take us over our budget and into the clear was not coming. Which means my husband and I are getting on to a plane TONIGHT $1382 short of our goal. 

STRESS!!!!!!!!!!

So we got on the phones, Jacob called people, I called churches. And we raised $750 in an hour or so. It was awesome! and humbling! 
We're still about $650 short and really need to raise that money before the end of our trip. But God got us this far. I'm excited to see who He pulls in to help us get the rest of the way. 

We managed to get to the airport hitting minimal traffic and got through security swiftly. 

Now, I'm staring at this ginormous plane that they're trying to convince me is capable of flight, and fighting thoughts of the 18 hour flight with memories of my trip from two years ago. I anticipate this trip to be even more awesome. 

Goodbye America, I'll keep in touch and see you again soon enough.