Things for which to be thankful

Recently, we've been having power outages almost daily, mostly in the evenings. I'm thankful that we do have power, though, even though it's been somewhat sporadic. Right now, it's on. It's been on and off (more off than on) since 4 pm. Which is a pain when you're trying to study. That's what I do in the evenings.

Since I've got to get back to my reading (but wanted to get some computer stuff done quickly while we have power), here's a list of things for which I'm thankful tonight.

• So I'm thankful for my Kerosene lamp, which provides enough light to read by.
• I'm thankful for my house that keeps me dry.
• I'm thankful for Flannel who keeps me company.
• I'm thankful for my friendly neighbors who came to dinner last night, and that I was able to make some goodies and share it with a dozen or so people tonight.
• I'm thankful that my community is asking some of the hard questions of life, like what Christians should be like, or what the Gospel truly is, and why it is that things got ugly earlier this year despite the fact that Kenya's a Christian country.
• I'm thankful for the chance to study, and for all I'm learning in this program, even though some of the things I'm learning about myself (stuff I should be doing very differently in ministry) isn't always fun to learn. But it's good, and for that, I'm infinitely thankful.
• I'm thankful that the very nasty flu virus making the rounds has not affected me.
• I'm thankful for God's provision every day, and for his grace.
• And I'm thankful that my reading pile is going down... (The pile on the right in the picture are the books I've read. The pile on the left (and on the desk) is what I'm aiming to have completed by the end of next week, so I can focus on writing my paper on women in ministry. I think that's what my topic will be, at least.
• I'm thankful that none of our kids got hurt when the bridge (on which they were walking) broke on Sunday! (More about that later this week.)
• I'll be thankful when the power's back up later so I can get this posted and possibly take a warm shower. (Without power, we don't have warm water. It's a risk to get into the shower while the power keeps going out... You end up taking really cold showers!)

Back to reading!