Living in Community

I was just musing with my buddies here about the fact that yes, in fact, we do live in a guesthouse. It's a bit of an odd way to live. While we have bedrooms (which I also happen to share with Grace) with doors and curtains, the rest of our living space is very public. Our living room is in a screened in porch - there is a stone wall about a foot and a half tall, but the rest of the 12 ft wall is just screen, which faces the parking lot and all the other houses on the compound. Especially at night, when we have our lights on, our living room and dining area are completely on display for all the world to see! Here's a not so good photo of what our guesthouse looks like at night.One of the other strange things about living in this guesthouse is that it is really a public place. People don't knock to come into our living room - well, I mean, they can see if we're here from 50 feet away anyways, so no use in knocking!

The other strange thing about living and working in a guesthouse is the fact that my bedroom is also my office. So if someone comes in to discuss Dinka teacher training or Didinga orthography issues, I scootch my dirty clothes basket to the other side of the room and chit chat from my bed. Nothing like a good old hoffice to keep you humble. At least the translation teams that are here seem to recognize that we're not living and working under ideal situations, either. So they can't complain TOO much to us about the difficulty in finding accomodation and things like that around here. At least they have their own offices to work from!

But, living in a guesthouse has some real advantages, too. Now that rainy season has started, we've been using our big dining room for some good old fashioned fun, too. Last night we had a compound potluck again, which was the first in several weeks. It was good to be together with the neighbors again. We usually have our potlucks outside under the trees, but when it's raining... We also had our little church "service" inside for the second week in a row. It's so nice to have enough room and enough chairs and plates and cups to have so many people over! And such wonderful people they are around here, too.

There have been a few changes in the community around here - circle of life sort of things... On Friday evening, one couple that lived here for a while had a baby - a little girl. They're in Nairobi for the birth, but will be coming back here next month or so. I'm looking forward to having a little baby around!

But then, also on Friday, we heard that our other neighbor passed away in the UK. We all loved her so much - she was like a sweet mother to us all for the short time that she lived here on the compound. And it was just a month ago that they were here - and now she's gone. She is missed, but we're all praying for her husband and children, as she went downhill so quickly. Pray for Ian and their two grown children and grandchildren as they deal with this loss. She was such a wonderful Christian woman, and I can just see her dancing a little jig up there with Jesus tonight :)