Tuesday, August 26, 2008

to be complete. . . august 18th

to be complete is that not what every person seeks. do we not all ache to fill the emptiness that is in our lives. we too often seek to fill that void with a relationship, a job, a house, or a hobby. Yet, no matter what, those things don't complete us. a person, a thing, a place can't complete us. i have realized this truth over the last couple weeks.

i have been pressed with the truth that i have found in matthew. a rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks what it is that he needs to do to be saved. Jesus responds that he should obey the commandments, the rich young ruler feels confident. he has kept the commandments. Jesus then tells him "if you want to be COMPLETE, go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor and come follow me." the rich young ruler was dissapointed, he had put his trust, his completeness in his possesions, yet Christ was saying that he wasn't complete.

i can't help but wonder what would happen if we applied this truth in our lives. what if we sold our possessions and if we sought Christ with everything we had. of course it goes against reason and doesn't make sense.

the things that make sense are -

-getting a good job
-having insurance
-being financially secure
-having an established retirement

somehow these things are not making people complete, but are causing increasing -

-anxiety
-stress
-depression
-emptiness

perhaps we should take Christ at his word. give of ourselves and find that in all of our pursuits of

-clothing
-nice houses
-power
-security

we are not complete.

Christ says to give it up and follow him. it doesn't make sense, but in His truth we will find

-peace
-joy
-fulfillment
and we will be complete!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

reminder. . . aug. 10th

this morning in church i was so hot. merely sitting there sweat was pouring off me. my face was hot, my head felt heavy. when i am tired it is hard for me to understand creole and i really did feel exhausted. i had been up a few times with the nurses in the birthing center the night before. i was allowing myself to bask in my suffering.

i looked over to the women's choir to see madame jericho there. i am excited to see her begin to get involved in things at church. i knew that the women's choir was going to be singing because i had gone to visit her the day before and she wasn't home, but was at "repitition" of choir practice. her children and their father were there. it was really cute, one of her little one's john wendy is absolutely adorable and when he saw us coming he took off running to come say hi and instead took a tumble down the hill. i heard his father admonishing him that he shouldn't have ran so quickly. i cleared the top of the hill and began to dust his little body off from the dirt of his tumble, kissed him on the cheek and hoped all was better. anyway. . . that is a sidenote.

back to church. i was sitting there thinking about how miserable i was when i realized how many of these women have gotten up early, some even pressed their clothes the night before with charcoal irons and got themselves and their children ready for church. they were their praising and i was complaining in my heart about the weather.

i am so often in need of a new perspective. i am glad when they come, i just wish i could remember the lessons learned a bit longer.

Monday, August 4, 2008

water. . .

i was out at the bay thursday through saturday to have clinic on friday for pregnant moms.  i was supposed to go on wednesday, but ended up with a wonderful case of strep throat and figured i shouldn't share that with a bunch of expecting mothers!!  i still wanted to go because there is a new american nurse who is going to be at the bay for a year and i am teaching her how to do prenatal consults for the times i am not here. . . anyway, that isn't the point of what i am writing about.

while i was at the bay it rained.  that isn't a completely amazing fact.  the interesting aspect was it also flooded.  it appears that there is a flood plain through the front yard of the houses and clinic.  it was later friday night, we were playing cards by flashlight (you should try it!!) and one of the workers said, the water is coming.  then we could hear it. . . it sounded just like a river and it washed through the front yard.  it wasn't too high, or high enough that it was going to come in the house, but the sound and the power of it was amazing.  i began to think about the power that water holds.  if it would have been just a foot higher, we would have had no control over keeping it out of the house, no control over keeping it from washing away the items in the house.  the power of that rushing water stuck with my thoughts.

saturday while traveling back to st. louis du nord we were driving beside the ocean.  for those of you who have been here, you will have a visual of what i am talking about.  there is a boat that has been sitting right off the coast in the ocean for as long as i have been coming here, that is at least 10 years!  slowly but surely the boat has been worn down.  it changed from a boat, to two large pieces of metal and the other day i noticed that it was just a little bit of metal sticking out from the ocean surface.  

i thought back again to the water.  to the power of water.  water can be a strong force like a flood, or a slow steady force of the ocean's tide.  

the water reminded me in a way of God's love.  at times it is such a strong force like a flood, but it is also constant like the ocean's tide.  that is a comfort to me.

july 28 - fragile

this morning i was running around from one place to another.  it was monday morning and it seems as though mondays there are always double the amount of people here for clinic, plus we have an american doctor here.  i was helping them with clinic, one of our interpreters was really sick, various people i had seen over the weekend came to me wanting to be consulted.  all in all a busy morning.

i was in the birthing center to get a couple things for another patient.  ermilda (one of the nurses) was doing a delivery.  i realized that after this delivery there were no more cord clamps out, so i got some out of storage.  for some reason i felt a very strong sense that i needed to stay in the birthing center until the baby was born.  i usually listen to those strong urges.  so i stayed.  everything was fine.

i headed out of the birthing center to finish my running around and realized that i still had the cord clamps i had gotten out in my hand.  i almost continued down the hallway thinking i would take them back later, but instead turned back around to take them back into the birthing center.

when i came back into the room i saw anne marie (our other nurse) struggling to get the baby who was just pink minutes ago to breath.  she had him by his feet rubbing his back (which is usually one of their ways to get them to breath!).  his body had very little muscle tone, his color was anything but pink.

i threw on a pair of gloves, turned on the oxygen and grabbed an ambu bag in hopes to get this little one breathing again.  his heart rate was dropping, the face mask i had to try to give him some breathes with the ambu bag didn't fit his face, the oxygen tubing wouldn't stay in place.  nothing was working right!!

i quickly grabbed a new face mask and took a deep breath and reminded myself that i am not in control of the outcome of this little one's life, but can only do what i can.  i began to bag him again, this time a little more air went to his lungs.  he began to turn a light shade of pink instead of deep blue.  i finally heard a small whimper and he began to breath on his own.  he stayed on oxygen for a while, but by the afternoon he was with his mom breastfeeding well.

i am so grateful to the promptings i had to be around the birthing center at that time.  i don't know why i walked out with the cord clamps in my hands making me have to return.  no.  i do know.  somehow God is in control of all of this. . . and life is very fragile.

july 21

today has been beautiful from the beginning.  to think back to this morning feels like it could have almost been two days.

i started this morning jumping out of bed when i realized that i was or was very soon going to be late for morning devotions if i didn't get moving.  the power had been off for a while and it was warm, but then again, that is pretty much every morning.

my precious friend jordanne put together a collection of birthday cards for me today and i have opened those throughout the day and that has been such a beautiful and encouraging gift.

truly though i think the thing that has been the most overwhelming is the amount of medicine this group has brought.  the day before the group arrived we had two tubes of triple antibiotic ointment left.  i almost cried thinking about how difficult it was going to be to not have that over the next months.  i had sent an e-mail to the groups asking them to bring the medical things we need, but you never know what type of response we were going to get??  the response was amazing!!  we have so much triple antibiotic cream that we had to put some away in storage.  unbelievable!  of course there were other things as well, tylenol, ibuprofen and so many other medicines that we need here all the time.  i think that was basically those were the best birthday presents ever.

i went to the front after devotions to thank everyone for their generosity with what all they had brought and of course someone thought they should announce it was my birthday, so i had a group of over 120 people serenading me.  (not my favorite!!)

to top off the night my friends here gave me a surprise cake and presents party.  my friends were creative with their gifts as you have to be in haiti, but i was so grateful just for their love! 

to love and be loved is such a blessing in our lives.