There is an aspect of living in Zambia that is a great help spiritually, at least to me, having grown up in a very materialistic culture. Here even the frustrations of South Africa are reduced, because rather than living with many Western luxuries but not all one simply has to face the fact that there are practically none. In Zambia there are many things that simply cannot be had because no-one in the country is selling them. My hobby of photography is constrained by the fact that what I have, I have; in addition there are no magazines to tempt me with their adverts for Nikon's latest and greatest. There is no ‘Apple Store’ anywhere to see the latest computer. I cannot get the books I would like because they must be ordered internationally, and the postage will cost as much (sometimes more) than the book. Even something as simple as batteries for my hearing-aid must be got in Lusaka, several hours away by road. So distractions from spiritual life that easily crowd in for so many are much fewer here, and there is more time for the things of God. 
Recently I read in the morning some words from the Puritan prayers in the ‘Valley of Vision,’ where in a prayer speaking of Calvary were these words:

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
cast off that I might be brought in, 
trodden down as and enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend, 
surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best, 
stripped that I might be clothed . . . . 
[he] wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes . . . 
bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem . . . 
closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness. 

Sometimes, to my shame, even here there are sufficient distractions that I easily allow what I read in the morning to slip away. But this day happened to be a holiday. In the evening, when I might have spent some time in entertainment, the fact that the power had already been off for five hours and would not return before I went to bed four hours later kept me to my book by the light of the oil lamp (godly George Herbert’s writings on the country pastor, just as relevant in twent-first century Zambia as in early seventeenth century England) and my thoughts, which kept returning to that morning prayer.
Well then, it is true that less can be more! Much as I miss Wales, friends and family, and many things, I would not have swapped that day for anything. And the next day, the prayer I read seemed to underline what I needed to learn:

May Thy dear Son preserve me from this present evil world, 
so that its smiles never allure, 
nor its frowns terrify, 
nor its vices defile, 
nor its errors delude me. 
May I feel that I am a stranger and pilgrim on earth, 
declaring plainly that I seek a country, 
my title to it becoming daily more clear, 
my meetness for it more perfect, 
my foretastes of it more abundant; 
and whatsoever I do may it be done in the Saviour’s name.