First World Missionary Problems

Not too long ago, I had the joy of speaking to a friend who is a missionary in a third world country. We laughed about the differences in the problems I face as a missionary in the US versus the problems she faces. For example, I never have to worry about cleaning spilled oil with ashes or sawdust, or chasing a chicken out of the house, or finding a dead frog in the pipes. After our conversation, I started to think about all the problems we face as missionaries in a first world country that my friend probably won't face...

1. Balancing the temperature in your room so that you can sleep. Between the overactive heater that will flood the room if you turn it down and an open window, it's not as easy as you'd think.
2. Refreshing the Internet connection over and over again until it finally works. And when it still doesn't work, unplugging the router and plugging it back in. And when that doesn't work, finding work to do that doesn't involve the Internet.
3. Spellchecking your blog and finding out that Internet is a proper noun and thus should be capitalized. But apparently spellchecking is a real word.
3. Realizing that you can't continue to drive into the icy snowstorm, even though you're so close to home. And upon discovering that the one motel for the next 18 miles is full, begging the fire department to let you stay there.
4. Figuring out how to get to the Sam House for Bible studies. You've been going there all year, yet without fail each week when it's time to leave, nobody knows who will drive us or whose car we will borrow.
5. Determining if we have enough sheets, mattresses, rooms, etc. to accommodate an extra 16 people. As simple as it seems to count mattresses or sheets, it's one of those things that takes way more work than it should.
6. Deciding what's worth keeping after a fridge and a freezer have been unplugged for a couple days. On the bright side, we're no longer hanging on to the massive meat donation from a restaurant that's been cooked and frozen and thawed and frozen and in the freezer since August.
7. Convincing volunteers and donors that we are, in fact, still going to be serving our monthly lunch in the park, even though it's snowing. Apparently most people cancel events when it snows.
8. Eating cookout food in the snow. You really get a taste (literally) of what it's like to be homeless when you're eating soggy chips and hotdog buns.
9. Making string rosaries until your fingers blister. Then finding a different spot on your fingers to tie the string around so that you can make even more string rosaries.
10. Saying goodbye to groups of college students who come to serve with you for their spring break. You put a lot of work into preparing for them, yet the week went so fast that you didn't get enough time with them!
11. Talking with a woman who comes to the Gabriel House saying that she has no milk for her baby and nowhere to get any. Thankfully, you were able to find a place that can help her after just a couple of phone calls. (The real problem comes in trying to give her directions to the place in Spanish.)
12. Knowing that you haven't spent enough time in prayer based on your thoughts, words, and actions. Apparently charity really does come from Christ. (This one is probably a universal missionary problem. If missionaries in third world countries never find themselves lacking in charity, I'm going to move.)
13. Buying as much rubber cement as Walgreens has in stock. You're pretty sure the cashier thinks you're going to use it for other purposes, but something tells you she won't believe if you say that you need it to glue paper onto the sides of a thousand Chinese take-out boxes to make them into Lenten sacrifice boxes.