to honk or not to honk (is not really the question)

Since getting back to the States five weeks ago, we’ve driven about 5000 miles, seeing family & friends and attending a couple of missions & nonprofit workshops. This adds up to 80-100 hours in the car so far, and I’m having trouble unlearning my honking habits learned in Nicaragua. Back in the tropics, it would be unusual to drive half an hour without honking at least twice. An American visitor rode with me once and told me that he hadn’t honked as much in the last 10 years as I had done in that single day. And I hadn’t been aware that I had honked much. It’s become a reflex.

Honking happens a lot more in Nicaragua because it has a wider range of communication, which I’ll generalize with these five phrases:

One of those days

Today was one of those days. The kind where one thing goes wrong and every other thing follows suit. It’s like all the things were getting together and ganging up on us, knowing if they tried hard enough, they would conquer us.

Tomorrow is our anniversary. Eight wonderful, difficult, amazing, challenging, blessed years. Full of ups and downs (mostly related to our circumstances, not our relationship). We were going to celebrate by going to dinner tonight. But then all the things happened.

We found out the car repair is going to cost at least ten times as much as we thought (yes – no exaggeration – ten!). Our neighborhood kids behaved terribly for us and our team who came to put on a really fun VBS for them this week. And then there is the heat. Which causes the sweat. Which never stops.  Which saps all the energy. And all the little spaces in the day that weren’t filled with sweating profusely, being overwhelmed about the car or frustrated by the kids who were running away as we tried to talk them into behaving and listening—shut up and listen to the message about God’s love!—all those moments were filled with smaller things made bigger by the weight of the rest of the day.