Change

I'm sure there are some great quotes out there about "change". I'm just a bit too lazy and stuffed up (yay for hayfever - comes the day after the rain, every time) to find any of them, though.

But yeah. Change. It's quite the constant in life. And I think even more so in my little corner of the world. Nothing stays the same here. Not even the roads. For example, yesterday, I went to the airport to pick up Jackie (lucky duck, just came back from 3 weeks in the UK!). She was already in the parking lot when I arrived, and the airport is only about a 10 minute drive from our place. In the time that it took me to get to the airport, collect Jackie from the parking lot, turn around and drive back, they had already changed our main tarmac intersection!

I drive through this particular t-intersection a lot, and I must admit, I've started to drive using "Jb rules". Which means that, well, you basically fill up any available space on the road, especially while waiting to cross traffic while making a turn. And when making a left turn onto a road, people normally drive around the cars waiting to get onto the road on the wrong side of the road. Um, does that make any sense?! Basically, people make left turns into the lane of the opposing traffic all the time, and it can be quite chaotic at intersections - until you see the beauty and the rhythm of it all - it's more like modern dance than a three-step waltz, but it's a dance all the same.

Anyways, in the time that I took to come back from the airport, some traffic police had decided to "helpfully" put a bit metal post in the middle of the road, right where people generally wait for turning, and right in the path where you would turn into the opposing traffic's lane. In the Western world, this is a good thing. Around here, it just confuses people. And it all got installed within the 10 minutes that it took me to go to the airport.

And then today, on our way out to lunch, the other main road was closed (has been closed for several weeks for construction). As usual, there was a bit of organized chaos as people negotiated the poles stuck in the ground where they're going to put a new roundabout. But the road that we wanted to go on was still closed.

However, in the time that it took for us to gobble down our lunch, the road opened! And this on a Sunday afternoon! Truly, truly amazing.

So certain things around here can change very quickly. Just in our organization, we have suddenly gone from being 4 full time expatriates living here to being 8 expatriates living here, in the space of 10 days.

This afternoon, one of my friends called me and said that her organization is no longer funding her job as a consultant with the gov't here, so she's leaving by the end of the month, quite unexpectedly.

In our Sunday evening fellowship, there were so many new faces, and we were already missing so many people who have come and gone. When I tell new people how long I've lived here, their mouths usually fall open, because there are so few expats who have lived here for longer than a year or two. Most of the friends I have here now are completely different from the friends I had a year ago (there are some who have remained, and for them I am very thankful!).

Things change. These seem like little things, and they are in the whole scheme of life, but when it's one thing after another, constantly changing, it's hard to know what's what sometimes!

At least I know that the Lord never changes. His Word never changes. His character never changes. And He will never move away. In a place like this, where I'm constantly dealing with change, that's such a comfort. I don't know how people would be able to deal with all this change if they didn't have that assurance that somehow, they were working in a Kingdom that will not change, and will, in the end, be the only one left standing, serving the King who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.