Thankfulness, day 16

You know what one of the hardest things about living in England is?" my friend Renee asks me as we contemplate the idea that we have been interviewing for a position in England. Renee was a missionary in Guatemala in a town called Zacapa. She had 2 very small children and often no water or electricity, very hot temperatures, and the constant pressures of ministry. "One of the hardest things, for an American, is that you probably won't have a dryer." What? No dryer? In England? The idea had never occured to me, after all I wasn't going to a place like Zacapa? But its true, we have been living in a beautiful wonderful home and there is no dryer, and yet I am okay with that. Well, sort of. Its okay in the summer when you can dry things outside and they smell crisp and lovely. There are wonderful pegs in the bathroom that I can hang and stretch things out on, but when the weather turns cold and damp and it takes 2 days for things to dry and then they need washed again because they smell moldy...I started to not be okay. "This is so hard!" I complained to todd one night. "This is so hard, I can't deal with this!" Now you may know why I let my kids sleep in their clothes, and they may be wearing the same thing for 2 + days. Hey they are clean on Sunday. :)
Then last friday our property manager calls and asks how we would like a dryer as the owners of our house want to get one. "Yes," I say, barely able to get it out, "I would really, really like that." It was supposed to take 5 weeks to arrive, and it was delivered yesterday (after only 4 days). Today I pulled warm, soft jeans and socks out of the condenser dryer, sang the doxology and cried. For joy. I am thankful for dryers and for generous home owners and for God who knows I just need a bit more help to make it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And for the foam packaging, because my boys have been playing with it.
A condensor dryer by the way is very clever, it takes all the water and some how collects it in a container at the top of the dryer, after each load the water is emptied out into the sink. There is no dryer vent that leads to the outside, it is all contained.