Article submitted by Randy & Brenda Purcell, Country Directors in Guatemala
1. You start preferring the local potato chips to Ruffles potato chips.
2. You can’t finish a complete sentence without making a grammatical error and spell check is your close friend!
3. You start thinking like the locals, and often wonder if the gringos are out to change you!
4. You start dreaming of buying your very own primary colored concrete home!
5. Your idea of cleaning off the table is brushing off the crumbs and calling the dogs in to clean up.
6. You don’t make the kids wash their hands with hand sanitizer, and if they don’t have too much dirt on them it’s ok…………dig in!
7. You kiss and hug everyone when entering and exiting a room, and now you are in the States and you wonder why everyone is cringing when they see you coming!
8. You feel more comfortable and relaxed walking arm in arm with your friends. (This only applies to females!)
9. You’ll use the side of the street for a potty break if need be, and it doesn’t embarrass you!
10. The dogs barking, the roosters crowing, the firecrackers and bombs going off in the middle night seem to loll you to sleep.
11. You feel a little out of place in the States, and look forward to a quick visit to the Mexican grocery store to feel at home.
12. You can’t get used to putting your toilet paper in the toilet in the States, and your family and friends are praying that you would!
13. You’ll let a neighbor sew you a jumper, and you don’t care that the flowers are upside down!
14. You wear it to church in the States, but no one even notices or says anything because now they REALLY think that you are a missionary!
15. You are back in the States and you start craving hot corn tortillas, black beans and rice.
16. You proudly display all the gifts that your local friends give to you in your home and you actually like them!
17. An hour and a half church service seems like you just got started!
18. It seems perfectly normal to talk about gastro problems at the dinner table.
19. You read this letter and think so what’s so abnormal about all of this?
20. You leave a pastor’s house with a gift of a bucket of fresh fried whole fish. They look so good even with the heads on that you don’t even get half way down the road and you’re eating around the head and throwing the bones and the heads out the window when you’re finished! This isn’t called “littering”, it’s called “sharing”!
21. You think it’s perfectly normal to have everyone pray loudly at the same time and it doesn’t throw through you for a loop or lose your thought pattern while you pray!
22. You wear a lightweight vest with your dress for the purpose of wiping the sweat off your face when in a hot area!
23. You realize that make-up and curling irons are NOT a necessity!
24. You feel blessed to live in a house that has hot water, kitchen cabinets, closets in the bedrooms and an armed guard blowing a whistle all night long to keep the thieves out!
25. And last but not least…………. you wish that all your family, church family and friends would come visit you, so that you wouldn’t have to make the trip back, and that they could enjoy all of the above with you!