We are so blessed in America!

Today we left Kenema and returned to Freetown. It was about a 4 hour drive, but in the states in probably would have only taken 1 hour. The main freeway would have stretches of asphalt and then all the sudden turn into dirt. The dirt roads had large holes and ruts. We had miles and miles of dirt 4x4 road conditions. It is hard to believe that this is one of their main freeways in the country.

We told our driver that in America you can drive for hours and hours on smooth roads and that you never have sections of main road that aren't paved. He kind of laughed not really sure if we were being sarcastic. He then said, "Are you serious?" You could see the amazement in his face as he quickly thought about such a fantastic road system.

The hotel we are staying in has hot water so I was in heaven today and it was hard to get out. Later, one of the receptionist asked me how I liked the hotel and I told her I loved the hot water and continued to tell her that this was the first hotel that offered this, but then I realized, "You are talking to an African, she lives without hot water everyday", so I cooled off on talking about how much I missed it. She was wearing a professional business suit and had her hair done nice. If someone didn't know better they would think that for sure she had these basic necessities.

Sure enough, after talking with her I found out she doesn't have hot water, she bathes in a community wash center, and they fetch water from a well. This is the life of a successful double income earning family that are part of the 30 percent of the country that is employed.

I've been thinking about all the conveniences we have been blessed with and the time it frees up for us to do other things. I can imagine the Lord would be disappointed with me if I had the unique blessing of living in a society where we have "filler" time because of the country's success and I used that time for selfish purposes. Sure we say we are busy but most of it is with stuff we are choosing to do, it doesn't deal with basics of life such as food and water that need to be re obtained each day.

We complain about how busy we are with our kids activities and how one of us needs to be at the ball park and the other at the soccer field. I can't imagine how many Africans would love to have this problem. I just hope at the end of the day I can look back on this "gift of time" and know that I used it in a way that will please the Lord.

Love you~Matt