The curse of a new truck...

Other, more appropriate titles for this blog might read:

1. When a blessing becomes a curse.

2. The potential to be cursed with a new shiny truck when one is obsessed with the compulsive behavior of wanting to keep your vehicle clean and shiny, always.

3. Life in Africa.

Now for the explanation. Last Saturday we drove to Busia for training. During the long rainy season, which we are currently in, (that means it rains frequently from March to May), it is impossible to keep your vehicle clean for any amount of time. By the time we arrived in Busia it resembled the Peanut cartoon character, "Pig Pen", complete with its own dust cloud. During the course of presenting the temple prepartation class to 15 very eager members, I noticed two young men outside washing the truck. How nice of them to take the initiative to do so. After our meetings, I visited with one of them, praised him for their work and paid him for their efforts.

It wasn't until today I realized just what I had paid for. They had used a mop and a bucket of water to wash the truck. The same mop they clean the dirty floors with. The effect was the same as using steel wool on the car surface! And it was such a uniform pattern over most of the surface; they really did a good job washing the truck. I didn't discover this until after I washed the truck Monday morning. So I spent a couple of hours working on removing the slightly scoured look from the truck. The picture is misleading; the truck looks shiny, but there are still minor scratches on the surfaces that will take additional waxing to completely remove.

Moral of this picture is: beauty is only skin deep. If you look close enough, you will detect the flaws.

So, was this a blessing or a curse? To us, this truck is a blessing. We could not perform the service we do without a reliable four wheel drive vehicle. We have gone places not even Captain Kirk has gone to. This is just another example of one of tender mercies of the Lord that help us to bless the lives of others. And it gave me an opportunity to work off my Monday morning frustration.