Though I couldn’t do nothing all week, it was a strangely wonderful week of afternoon naps and rest times that made me feel a lot better quite quickly. On Tuesday we could finally move all the bookshelves and books back to the bookshop – it was quite a pain that because of this new (?) regulation that nearly landed us with a fine, the driver had to park the big truck a few blocks from the bookshop, by the railroad, and then they had to put all the boxes and shelves in the Landrover, which could then drive to the bookshop. I think it took 7 trips to get everything there! Even though I wasn’t doing much, this whole convoluted process had finished my patience for the day, so I stretched the unpacking of the boxes, rearranging of the shelves and inventory out over several days, only finishing on Friday. By Thursday I started feeling like a thinking, feeling, normal person again and not just a bunch of exhausted nerves. Dr Woodrow was busy presenting his seminar on systematic theology all week – he had 19 students, and there were 30 in Gilson’s class on expository preaching, so this was quite exciting for us, it was the most students that had yet attended, in spite of moi messing up the publicity for these courses…
The next order of business seems to be how to face life after Fiel – how to balance the bookshop, the Projecto (distribution of books to pastors) and the admin of the hospital work. I hate it when I feel like I have at least 2 jobs, one done during the day at Dr Woodrow’s and one in the evening, catching up with bookshop/Projecto stuff. I also need to start seeing my Portuguese language helper again and studying – my vocabulary is pathetic! I need to read, to think, to write, to be intellectually creative again… I need a deeper, truer inner life than I do at the moment. And yet I am so afraid of all these resolutions flying out the window as soon as hospital construction starts. I need to pray for a lot of wisdom! But I realised again how privileged I am to be doing a job I love, with a ministry I am passionate about, that the Lord has somehow chosen to give me something to do that means a lot to me. May I manage not to lose this sense of wonder and gratitude when I am doing the jobs I don’t love quite so much!
More pictures to follow, this takes forever…
