Much Chaos

I have found there is much struggle with being a full time math/economics/Health teacher and a full time jungle doctor/nurse. The kids need my help with their Hw and the patients need treatment. I must lesson plan and read up on diseases. I help run the Monday clinic and and teach four classes. I must grade papers and assess people. I must give exams and deal with the emergencies... Normally at the same time. Or that's what happened this week. The three emergencies from the last blog put me behind on making my exams for this week. Midterms. Those blasted things. Since, unlike the other teachers, I don't get the afternoons or early morning to do other teacher stuff, I must squeeze it in there somewhere. With the busy week prior to exam week, I didn't have time to make my exams then either. And so that is how I found myself scrambling the night before two of my exams, making them, fighting sleep, hating everything. At 9 I couldn't go on any longer (I know I'm a grandpa) and so i slept thinking I would finish with enough time in the morning. 

When I awoke the next morning, I began. This normally should have been a quick thing but with my Microsoft word deciding it wanted to stop working and with half of the test containing math characters not in another program, the struggle was real. Plus most of my students aren't quite prepared for 9th and 10th grade math to begin with (not being able to multiply and divide. I'm not sure how they have made it this far) so I have to individualize tests to set them up for some kind of success.

So I had to make 5 different tests. I was making them on Pages (what the...) and things were going very slow and my time was running out. It was also my idea to give worship that morning before the exams. Mistake. 

When I finally finished making my exams and was ready to print them, I remembered that I had to write half the test by hand. That's ok, I thought, I will just do one copy of each test and then Xerox it. And so 15 min before the time to give worship, I was in the office printing. Of course in times of extreme stress nothing wants to work, the ink is nonexistent in the copier and all the men in Garo hills wanted to show up in the office at the same time and ask me the same questions... The struggle. I was inside having a panic attack wanting everything just to stop for a moment. I was already five min late to my exam and I didn't give worship. I was handwriting all my exams and the printer was jammed and the sky was falling, and there was an earthquake. Ok the last two are false, but I felt it was that way.

 I finally made it to class and gave my exam. I spent the time making another exam. In the end, no one died, but it sure felt like it. I'm not a fan of this much chaos. I don't think anyone is. 

But I have found it is less about the chaos, and the having a mental break down, and wanting to kick all the chickens in my frustration. Instead it is more about the surrender. More about the asking for help from on high. More about believing that God isn't going to let your life flood all the way over. And if He does, He'll be your ark. He'll even drive for you. You just have to come for the ride. The rain might come for forty days and forty nights (it literally rains everyday here), but you'll have a roof, and the chaos of the winds and waves won't overcome you. They will just make you stronger. And you will look back on it all and say, "Wow, God brought me through all that?! Well Bless!" 

Then when you have to make decisions about your patients that could be life or death, and the network goes out and you can't reach your partner or translator, and you have to be a teacher and a doctor, and the struggle increases and goes on, like this sentence, you will be alright. Again. Death won't come. The babies may still cry on the compound and the roosters may still run this, but God rules the world. And as the song says, He's got the whole world in His hands.

He's got you and me brother/sister. 

He's got the Kameron's. 

Reganoke!