Things we take for granted in the US

1.  Cold milk in a gallon jug  (ours is in a box purchased at room temperature)
2.  Being able to flush toilet paper down a toilet  (we have to throw our used toilet paper in the trash can)
3.  Laying on the floor to play a game or watch a movie  (we have tile floors that must be swept constantly because of the spider and termite residue and the grass and dirt we bring in on our feet)
4.  Television (none here)
5.  A/C (none here)
6.  Buying all groceries in one location  (we travel from butcher, to fruit stand, to pharmacy, to tiny grocery store, to bakery, etc)
7.  Bacon  ($4 for eight slices!)
8.  Clean water coming out of the tap  (we have to get ours from the spigot outside the hospital)
9.  Clean streets (litter is prevalent; I saw a dead mouse on the street last night)
10. Dependable phone and internet service (ours can go out at any minute; several times a day we have to 'reconnect')
11. Big Houses (our 1000 square foot cement brick house here is a mansion in comparison to what some people live in)
12. Diverse restaurant options  (we have pizza, Chinese, and Ecuadorian; what I wouldn't do for Mexican, Japanese, Thai, American, Lebanese, etc.)
13. Medicine purchased at the pharmacy that comes with instructions (when we buy medicine they sometimes only give the tablets that I need instead of the entire box; yet the box itself does not come with directions for use or side-effect information; I have to consult the internet website in Spanish to see if I can decipher the medical information or ask a medical friend of mine here to see what they can tell me about the medicine)
14. Mail delivery  (people have to pay for a post office box; then you have to go to the post office to pick the mail up; currently there are five families that we know of--including us--that are awaiting packages from the US that were mailed in November and still have not arrived.  Apparently there is a hold up in Quito in Customs and we're all suffering from it.)
15. Pizza sauce (pizza here does not come covered in red sauce--it's dry)
16. Sour cream (we have to take cream and add lime juice to it so that it will sour overnight sitting on the counter)
17. Tortilla chips (we can find them but they're in locations far from where we live)
18. Quality shoes (shoes here wear out in a month--Jacobey can attest to that)
19. Garages (no one has one)
20. Ground turkey (none here)
21. Highways (travel from one Ecuadorian city to another is always via a single, winding road that only has one lane going in either direction)
22. Freeways (inner city travel is all traffic and lights; there are no freeways at all to help you get across town easily)
23. Eating fruit as soon as you purchase it (we have to soak our fruit and veggies in bleach solution for five minutes prior to eating it)
24. Water at restaurants (we cannot drink the tap water; we have to buy a bottle of water if that's our drink of choice)
25. Cars (so few people own them here--including us--so it makes getting from place to place a lot harder)
26. Fast food (no drive thru options here)
27. Chocolate (lots of chocolate here comes unsweetened which, if you've ever tried it, is awful!!)
28. Noise ordinances (anyone can own a rooster, a boom box, a car with a car alarm, or a barking dog with unlimited ability to make noise all night and all day)
29. Comfortable chairs (every chair here is very erect and fairly hard and uncomfortable)
30. Great coffee (yes, I live in South America and am having a hard time finding great coffee; most Ecuadorians drink instant!; and yummy creamer that makes your coffee taste like French Vanilla or English Toffee or Amaretto is not available here)  I could list ump-teen things that we don't get here.  These are just the ones off the top of my head.

So, I don't write this entry to complain; I write it to let you know how blessed you are to live in a place where luxuries are not only in the form of big houses and new cars, but they can come in the smallest of packages such as informative medicine bottles or the ability to pop a grape in your mouth right after you buy it. Praise God for His provision and smile at the simplest of blessings; many do not have what you enjoy daily.

I secretly smile at the thought of returning to the US in June and seeing everything through new eyes and with a grateful heart: clean streets, manicured walkways, a car to drive, A/C!--and we'll shop for groceries with an excitement that may lead to our embarrassment there in the store--hugging packages and cheering when we see tortilla chips and our favorite salsa again.  All six of us look forward to that day--I just hope I don't gain a ton of weight!
Thanks for reading!
Blessings, kim