#9 Do paperwork
That is by far the most boring title I have ever put on anything. And I’m sure no one wants to read a long blog about it any more than they want to work on it. So let me be brief: this awful chore is inevitable.
I have taxes to do just like every other American. I have Mexican paperwork to turn in, too, in order to have permission to live here. I have to travel every once in a while to turn in new forms and put my signature and fingerprints on things.
Our team has to fill out forms to prove that we are being a help and support to the people in of Las Moras. We document all our good deeds and get proofs signed by local leadership. We write formal requests to borrow the clinic for when we bring in dentists. We write up paperwork for permission to use our airstrip, for water projects, and for anything else needing to be registered with the authorities.
I have to write reports for churches, answer emails, and send in other information. I correspond with people in charge of VBS, write back secretaries, and so on.
I write the finance office, transfer money to the missionaries in town who buy my supplies, do my banking online, and pay the plane bills for the small Cessna that gets me in and out of my mountain home.
Enough said. There are i’s to dot and t’s to cross in every profession. And I am grateful for all the tax paperwork because it means I have money; the bills mean I am being provided with crucial services, like the plane; the government paperwork means that I have permission to continue to live and minister here. Remind me next April that I said I am grateful.