I have been to a lot of places in this world, but until you live in a place you don’t realize how different societies are around the world. As I have traveled this world there have been many things I’ve seen and said, “Wow, that’s strange." You don’t realize til you live with them how strange, but normal these things are. They are strange because I’ve never seen them before, but normal because they have being done for centuries. Whether they are right or wrong is not for me to judge (but I often do in my own mind).
The first thing I have noticed is trash. It is everywhere! When walking down many streets you may be on top of six inches of trash. You sit there and watch people buy something and just throw the wrapper or packaging on the ground. There are few public trash cans and very little organized trash dumps. There is some, but not near enough for millions of people. Where you do find dumps you find bunches of orphan children digging through the trash looking for a treasure or food.
The next thing is how businesses are grouped together. If you need a hardware store you go to one section of town. No matter if its thirty minutes away. Where if they put them in different areas of town, you wouldn’t have to travel so far. One day I needed a certain PVC fitting and I went to Cha Cha Cha Road and went up and down the street in about fifty stores and never found what I was looking for.
Round Abouts are interesting parts of the traffic system. This took a lot of getting used to. I had never seen a Round About before except in the movie “European Vacation” when Chevy Chase went around the circle in London many, many times. I have to admit I have been around the circles more than one time. At first I could not figure out why anyone would want to have a Round About. After being here for a while I now see that it is an organized way of getting through an intersection without a traffic light (they call a traffic light a "robot"), and no where near as expensive. I now enjoy them and find them challenging.
LINES! We were taught from childhood to always form a line anytime you have a group trying to do the same objective. Here they have never had that concept. Whenever or whereever you go to buy something or get something you will never find a line. You have to find your way to the counter and hope they will pick you to be next. You may have been there twenty minutes and someone will walk in and try to get in front of you. As businesses develop it seems they are catching on a little. They are not trying to be rude, but it’s just in their nature of how to get service.
You may think by reading this, oh Ricky doesn’t like it there, just the opposite. We love it here and know God wants us here. There are always going to be differences, it’s just being able to accept those differences and realizing why you are where you are. There are so many people here searching for a meaning to life and we have the answer, so we must get past those differences and share Christ with them. It is Lottie Moon Offering time and for those of you who don’t know, this is our support from Southern Baptist around the world that keeps us doing our work. With us running the guest house we get to come in contact with so many of the missionaries and hear their stories of how God is working in mighty ways amongst their people groups. Please support our Missionaries where they can keep on working without having to worry about finances. The Gospel is on fire in many places around the world and we need it to keep growing. I hope to relay some of the stories we hear from our missionaries on the front lines. Thank you for being a part of our ministry.---posted by Ricky Cook
The first thing I have noticed is trash. It is everywhere! When walking down many streets you may be on top of six inches of trash. You sit there and watch people buy something and just throw the wrapper or packaging on the ground. There are few public trash cans and very little organized trash dumps. There is some, but not near enough for millions of people. Where you do find dumps you find bunches of orphan children digging through the trash looking for a treasure or food.
The next thing is how businesses are grouped together. If you need a hardware store you go to one section of town. No matter if its thirty minutes away. Where if they put them in different areas of town, you wouldn’t have to travel so far. One day I needed a certain PVC fitting and I went to Cha Cha Cha Road and went up and down the street in about fifty stores and never found what I was looking for.
Round Abouts are interesting parts of the traffic system. This took a lot of getting used to. I had never seen a Round About before except in the movie “European Vacation” when Chevy Chase went around the circle in London many, many times. I have to admit I have been around the circles more than one time. At first I could not figure out why anyone would want to have a Round About. After being here for a while I now see that it is an organized way of getting through an intersection without a traffic light (they call a traffic light a "robot"), and no where near as expensive. I now enjoy them and find them challenging.LINES! We were taught from childhood to always form a line anytime you have a group trying to do the same objective. Here they have never had that concept. Whenever or whereever you go to buy something or get something you will never find a line. You have to find your way to the counter and hope they will pick you to be next. You may have been there twenty minutes and someone will walk in and try to get in front of you. As businesses develop it seems they are catching on a little. They are not trying to be rude, but it’s just in their nature of how to get service.
You may think by reading this, oh Ricky doesn’t like it there, just the opposite. We love it here and know God wants us here. There are always going to be differences, it’s just being able to accept those differences and realizing why you are where you are. There are so many people here searching for a meaning to life and we have the answer, so we must get past those differences and share Christ with them. It is Lottie Moon Offering time and for those of you who don’t know, this is our support from Southern Baptist around the world that keeps us doing our work. With us running the guest house we get to come in contact with so many of the missionaries and hear their stories of how God is working in mighty ways amongst their people groups. Please support our Missionaries where they can keep on working without having to worry about finances. The Gospel is on fire in many places around the world and we need it to keep growing. I hope to relay some of the stories we hear from our missionaries on the front lines. Thank you for being a part of our ministry.---posted by Ricky Cook
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