Even in Australia

I decided to do the good motherly thing today and read a couple of books to Tikvah. Before we left Papua New Guinea last August, I had the chance to buy some stuff from a family who had left the field. They had a lovely collection of kids books, which I was only too thrilled to snatch up (I bought them all for Tikvah… really!). Henry the Duck, Lyle the Crocodile, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and even Doctor Desoto were among the treasures I rescued to be loved by a new Ukarumpa MK.
Today was a lovely sunny day, the kind that have been greatly missed of late. The kind of day that makes you feel guilty for not doing laundry, even if you didn’t need to, because at least it would have dried. So I grabbed an old blanket, my mug that tells me to “Drink PNG Coffee” and which I dutifully obey, and headed for the great outdoors of our yard to read to my darling daughter. I admit that at five months of age she is a little young to truly appreciate reading. But she didn’t complain. So I made my voice as animated as I could and read the words while Tikvah did her best to eat the pages.
Tikvah listened (and grabbed and chewed) as I read the tale of Alexander’s “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”, a story I remembered enjoying myself as a child. Well, I mean I enjoyed hearing it, not eating it. Alexander, the boy sharing his woes, recounts how everything that could go wrong in his life one day did go wrong. His solution to the problems unexpectedly made me laugh out loud. When his brothers get toys in their cereal boxes and he doesn’t, he declares, “I think I’ll move to Australia”. It’s such a cliché desire, to be somewhere else or be someone else or have something different. I should know better than to think those thoughts, and yet I still fall prey to such wishes.
For example, I would love to be on survey right now. At least, that’s how I feel. Never mind that I’m in PNG, never mind that I’m a bona fide missionary, never mind that I have a wonderful husband and a sweet daughter. I want to be on survey! Survey is COOL! Yes, I wanted all those other things, but I wanted to be a surveyor too!
John called me on the satellite phone last night, and I loved talking with him. He said he’s doing well after their crazy hikes, though the boat ride down the river through rapids was a little on the scary side.
“Is Tikvah walking and talking yet?” he asked. Wanting to make him feel like he was missing something, I replied in a dubious tone, “maaaaybe.” It worked. “It’s not fair!” I heard him exclaim after the half-second it took for his voice to get to a satellite and then reach my phone. Wow, I thought. YOU’RE one to talk! Here I sit, wishing I could be where you are, wanting to feel like a part of the team, wishing I could be doing survey on the rugged PNG countryside like I wanted to do. And you envy me because I’m changing poopy diapers, living two-thirds of my day with only one arm free, and taking care of a grouchy baby all by myself? Thanks to Alexander, I now know exactly what I should have said to John - “I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice-cream cone the ice cream part falls off the cone part and lands in Australia.” So there.
It really isn’t as bad as I’m making it sound, of course. I’m loving having Tikvah around, loving her smiles, loving her spit bubbles, and even loving watching her dance and grunt because she’s trying to fill her diaper! And I’m loving the fact that I have many friends to help make the time pass quicker. It’s just that some part of me still wants to do survey, to have at least a tiny part in helping Bible translation happen here in PNG. Is it wrong to want that? I don’t think so. Do I need to give it up for a time and be “just” a mom? Perhaps. Am I a worthwhile person if I don’t do survey at all? Of course! Then is it just my selfish pride that makes me feel I should do something with survey still? Oooooh, good question. I’m not sure I have a solid answer either. I do hope that God will grow me and teach me, however, and help me answer it in time. And, to help me answer each of these questions as they come up each day.
But for now, I’ll work to be content where I am. I’m confident that it was a good thing for me to stay home with Tikvah this time. And though I wish I were out with John, I know that there are hard things about being on survey too. So I’ll work to be content while I work to find my new niche - even if I find that it means being “just” mom.
It seems like contentment might be an important thing to learn, no matter how much better another situation might look. After all, as Alexander’s mom tells him at the end of his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day - “some days are just like that. Even in Australia.”