hurry up and wait

I wasn't planning on following the last post on coffee and Sampedrana with more on Sampedrana, but here we are.  

Last summer, someone blessed us with quite a few Samsung tablets, which we put on the container that FAME shipped.  Then the Milk Project staff charged and tested them all, worked out a list of where they could go to be use taking into account the other areas of the mission, and then finally earlier this year they went into service.  Here is one being use in Sunday School in Sampedrana.  They are already proving to be very handy/useful.

We have been waiting quite a while for groups to be back and be able to help up in Sampedrana on the road, and the prep work that it takes to be ready for that takes many days of labor by many people to prepare for a few days of fast advancement.  Getting wood here in Sampedrana for the borders on the pavers to be put down and then the concrete border poured takes a bit, among other things of all Fords available to move pavers to be into position, and then other trips to move sand, gravel and cement.  

Ah, this is in Las Botijas...burying the water lines from the new well.  The well was up, then had a major wind issue, going to have to build some walls around it, the way the wind whips through there some times of the year could damage panels again.  But with harvest and other tasks, and some equipment issues, there just hasn't been time to get the lines buried until now.  We also have donations to do some work on the road there, the worst area when it is raining, but we are waiting on the contractor who is going to do the work to have an opening in his schedule.

A nice little treat of splitting a watermelon in Sampedrana.  I love the conversation in this picture, but the knife's resting place here does look a little menacing.  Planting seeds to see a harvest in this community tomorrow...and/or 5, 10 or many more years down the road, one day at a time. 

Again, I didn't set out to share all this, but this last picture as much as any of the others, just shows that sometimes there are things in life that you are ready for and don't come or aren't finished as fast as you would like (even when the day to day impact isn't something I am personally going to see, feel, or be impacted by) but also remind me of our limitations, and the valuable commodity of time.  

Praying for the projects soon to be underway, those underway for months or years, and those to come that seemingly seem ready to move forward but...just don't as we would want (thinking specifically of the clinic ambulatory surgery expansion plans, finding different quotes on construction, coffee, finding Milk Project sponsors and mission support, and so much more.)  

It used to frustrate me, but now I find it a lot easier (not easy...just a lot easier than it used to be!) to focus on doing what God sets before us, what we can do, and not focus on what I can't control or make happen, since even a tiny glimpse in the rear view mirror shows only God got the mission here in the first place, not by anything we tried to force through.