"To be content with little is difficult, with much impossible."

- from list of quotes I had to write when I was in detention in high school.

One trip probably 2 months ago now, I went out with my translator on Monday morning and didn’t return from our trip til Friday night. We were driving around in the ’78 Rover without a roof or windshield in 100+ degree days, getting dusty and burned. I didn’t drink anything that could be considered cold or even cool that whole week. We ate with church leaders wherever we were, which meant local fare. It was a rough week. I think all of Friday I was only persevering through the hope a cold coke that night. When I got that coke it was the greatest coke of my entire life. Those five days with no creature comforts sweetened that coke immeasurably.

Two months later I don’t have bad memories of the rough week before, but I have a great memory of that coke. It was worth the rough week. I guess what I learned and am still learning here is that there is so much beauty in simplicity instead of self-indulgence. I probably had a cold soda almost every day in the states, even though I had cold water, coffee and whatever else available as well. But all those self-indulgent cokes don’t measure up to the one that I had when I’d gone without for a short time. Granted I still overindulge when that option is open to me, but I’m hoping to change that so that I can better appreciate things when I do partake in them.