A lesson in grace from human mosquito repellent

It was setting up to be another brutally hot day when we woke up in our small bamboo house. I chose to stay on top of my sleeping bag where I was able to watch the geckos play in the roof while listening to the sounds of a Papua New Guinean village waking up. I didn’t put off climbing out of the mosquito net for the novelty of hearing pigs and chickens argue under the house or to hear the crackle of fires heating a breakfast of leftover taro or even to hear the children running through the jungle after their river baths. On other days those sounds thrilled me, but on this particular morning I was weary. I knew the day was going to tick by painfully slow just like many of the days before it, and I knew it would be full of tasks that I simply did not want to do. The newness of life in PNG had worn off. 

Deslia!

After I stretched my time on the sleeping bag (never in it) to its absolute limit, I faced the day. Brian was supposed to go on a hike with our adopted father, Steven, and I was bitter because I was expected to stay back and clean. I was sick and tired of washing pots in the creek (which takes a long time), washing our clothes in the creek (which takes an even longer time), and having women and children watch me the whole time critiquing my style. My blood was boiling as I snuck to the creek hoping to avoid the usual trail of children that followed me for their daily entertainment. I had only passed two houses and still had a goodly distance left to the creek when three girls popped onto the path and trotted along behind me chattering away. I completely ignored them and spent the rest of the walk venting to God about the whole situation. I hoped that by not responding to them, or even really looking at them, they would become bored and leave me to be alone at the creek. Instead they stayed by my side for the two and a half hours that followed. One of the girls, Deslia, told story after story after story until I thought my nerves would fray completely. Right in the middle of one of her stories she came up behind me and slapped my leg hard. I took a deep breath and kept working, but she slapped me several more times in quick succession. I looked down at her with what I thought was one of my best teacher-glares. She smiled sweetly and explained with one simple word: mosquitos.

I realized that day what an incredibly selfish person I am. I was having a bad day and felt justified to wallow in my bad mood; after all, Brian got to go spend a day gallivanting through the jungle while I had to work! At the very least I deserved time to myself to nurse my frustrations. Instead I had to listen to a group of girls twitter about everything under the sun. But despite my Jonah attitude, I went home without one single mosquito bite after standing for hours in a creek infested with the bugs. Deslia squatted on the bank next to my legs, continued to tell her stories, and kept every mosquito from getting a nip at me; she was kind and loving where I was rude and cold. God used Deslia to teach me a lesson about being gracious and I hope I never forget it.