What Are You Packin'??

Missionaries are professional packers!!  Moving, traveling, and bringing enough Crisco, or chocolate chips, or Crystal Light for several years makes us pros at packing it and getting our luggage to the limit of the weight allowance.  We can also be very picky about suitcases - surprisingly opinionated, in fact.  The all important "carry on" piece is one of particular interest for many of us as it's not safe to put any valuables in our check in luggage…..yet airlines are becoming more and more strict on the size of the carry on.  That said, I just got a new carry on ….I love it.  It's light, it's big enough for my stuff, but not big enough to get me flagged.  I can even fit it in the smaller "United Express" flight overhead compartment when flying from Chicago to Springfield, MO!!  

WARNING: Random, bizarre subject change……and you will see how all of this ties together if you make it to the end of this post…….  

We periodically fight a mouse infestation.  In the U.S. I would never admit this as, as sometimes it can have a certain “stigma” in regards to housekeeping.  Now no one has ever called me a meticulous housekeeper.  But I do have my limits of "mess" and in a "normal" American setting have never had issues with mice.  But in Africa……well, let's just say it's more a question of "control" than "elimination.  We live in a city of over 10 million, with very poor infrastructure.  Waste is tossed wherever it's convenient, poor drainage in the streets, etc. makes for a very habitable place for mice.  We also live on a very busy, populated corner.  There's a taxi stop right across the street, people are everywhere eating, drinking, throwing their garbage on the ground, sewage backs up……you get the picture.  So, although we try to keep things clean, we do go through periods of having mice in the house.  I put out poison to kill them and after a few days, they're gone, only to return again at some point.  Remember – control….not elimination!

We just had one of our "mouse moments"…….seeing little droppings of "evidence" here and there and in the evening, if we were "lucky" we'd see one scurrying across the floor towards the closet.  So I did my thing and put out the poison.  A day or two later I was packing to make a quick trip to the U.S. for Ben's graduation.  I could smell the effects of my rat poison- there was definitely a dead mouse somewhere.  It was found in the closet and removed.  But all day (I was leaving that evening), I still kept smelling it!  I asked the man who helps me in the house to clean the area with bleach water, thinking that maybe the unfortunate mouse had lingered a bit longer than normal.  In the meantime I was packing and preparing. The last thing to be packed, of course, is the all important carry one…….are you seeing where this is going????  

I took my carry on into the bedroom and all of a sudden I could smell dead mouse again.  This was strange - my bedroom hadn't been smelling like dead mouse all day.  It hit me - was there a dead mouse in my carry on????????  I took it to my wonderful helper and told him I couldn't look inside, but to please look.  He found nothing….puzzled I went back to my bedroom to finish packing and there, lying on the carpet was the mouse.  It must have fallen out when I took my carry on out of the room.  We quickly removed the corpse and all was well.  I had my helper wipe out the inside of my carry on with bleach water, just to make sure, packed up and was on my way.

However, at the airport, I kept smelling dead mouse!!!!!  Was this a curse???  Why couldn't I get away from that stupid smell??  I was sitting in a lounge, taking with some businessmen who were on my flight.  My trusty carry on was right there next to me.  You know that little place on the top where the handle pulls out?  There's usually a little zipper there, in case you want to zip that spot closed.  And all of a sudden I saw it, on that opened zipper flap ……mouse…..bodily fluids.  The mouse had not died inside the carry on.  He had died in that little zipper place by the handle!!!  IT STUNK!!  I went into the bathroom and got hand soap and scrubbed and scrubbed.  It helped some, but the entire flight (in fact all 4 flights that it took to get me to Springfield), every time someone opened the overhead compartment where my carry on was stored……that awful mouse smell wafted through the cabin.  

There is, of course, a spiritual analogy here.  What are we packing in our suitcases?  Not the Samsonite ones, but the suitcases of our lives…….if we're not careful, we can lug around a big ole smelly something that is eventually obvious to everyone.  And even if we think we've removed the "body"…..we have to make sure we've given everything to Jesus, dealt with everything we need to deal with - or that smell remains.  

But I also like the very practical lessons here - check all zipped pockets before packing - you never know what might be in there!!