Overwhelmed!!

This is how I feel right now. It has been a crazy couple of weeks at Beautiful Gate. I have had more meetings in the past couple weeks and look forward to a change of pace when I get to Cape Town on Monday. We have been trying to resolve soooo many issues at the same time. And, to be honest, things do not work nearly as quickly as they do in America. On numerous occasions, I would be talking to someone on the phone and they would tell me that they would call me back with the answer. I would even set dates for them to get back to me. EVERY TIME, without fail so far, not one of them has called me back. AND, I have to call them back! Then, they still wouldn't have an answer! I have told Anita that if anyone in America tells me they have poor customer service, they have NO idea what poor customer service is!! I joke with Anita now that customer service here is taking the employee (not Beautiful Gate's employees, of course) and then doing all of their work yourself, just so you can get some sort of result. Don't laugh, it is true.
We have hopefully put a very stressful part of Beautiful Gate's operational review behind us now (we have been working on it since I started working here in early January), and now we have the pleasure of two teams coming to serve at Beautiful Gate. The first team is a group of people from The River CRC in California. Laury and I have been working hard to ensure that this trip goes off very smoothly. I will be able to see them on Saturday as I pick them up from the airport. Then, I will immediately leave to go to Cape Town when we get back. Please pray that Laury will have the strength to help that team while they are here next week. The second team is actually a study abroad team from Azusa Pacific University, which is coming in May. 12 students, 2 professors and their 2 children (yes the 2 professors are married) will be living with us in our house for almost 3 whole weeks! This will be an interesting time. I have not lived with college students for a very long time (longer than I want to admit, I am getting old). But, we will start the final phases of planning for that trip as soon as I get back from Cape Town.
There are many other issues that I am dealing with on a day-to-day basis here at Beautiful Gate. Some are fun and some are stressful. Balancing work life at Beautiful Gate with family life has been more difficult than imagined, as it is sometimes hard to be "off duty" while living on campus. Plus, finding time to play with the Beautiful Gate kids in all of this has been hard to find. On the positive side, I have been able to meet 3 of the 4 adoption agency representatives that Lesotho adopts to. They have all been wonderful people and very much appreciate the level of care that Beautiful Gate gives to it's children.
Please pray for our car (STILL). It is still stuck in customs in South Africa. I am struggling with patience for this, especially as it means that we need to rent a car to go to Cape Town next week (when we should have our car already). Our clearing agent in Lesotho told me a couple weeks ago that the longest that she had someone wait for a car is 8 weeks. Guess what, last Sunday was 8 weeks! It is great knowing that we are setting new records here! But, we should get our car sometime in the future :) I just hope that we won't be coming back from our 5 years here when we finally get it.
Sorry for the "vent session", but I just want you to know some of the frustrations of living in a different culture. Thanks again for all your prayer support! It really means a lot! We couldn't do this without the support of all of you! And, Ray, please don't worry about me, I will be fine. I just need to learn to adjust to this new culture. Thanks again!
Bryan