Close To Home

"When things fall apart and you think 'all I can do is pray' don't forget that prayer and Jesus are everything, and using Him is your best option"

Two tragedies have struck in the past week.

One of our American directors had a stroke and wasn't making much recovery in the hospital. Therefore, she will go back to America and get treatment there and return with her husband in Sept. It's like losing our Big Mama. She's that important. 

And then today I found out there was a death at Cohutta Springs Youth Camp, the sister Adventist camp to Indian Creek Camp, in the business of leading kids to Christ. A mighty work. A wake boarding accident that normally brings much excitement ended in sadness when the two boarders collided in midair. One boarder was greatly injured while the other was found face first in the water, not breathing.  Although every saving measure was taken to revive the boarder, he unfortunately passed after reaching the hospital. 23. Young. A life nonetheless. Nothing less than a tragedy.

I didn't know the young man well. We exchanged words once when I visited the camp a couple of summers ago. He drove me and friends around in the boat. It was great. Even in that little interaction, I saw Jesus in Him. 

Other friends of mine, those who worked with him or knew him in small time, are taking it worse. 

While in limbo about details concerning the accident, I asked my friend, Jeffrey Brownlow, if he heard the news. He told me he knew the guy for 19 years of his life. 

Woah. Wasn't ready. I narrowed down all the potential people fitting all the descriptions and figured out who it was. 

And then I wanted to just hug Jeffrey. I mean what do you do at a time when your bro is hurting and you're on the other side of the world? Your options are limited. I wanted to sit and laugh with him and remind him of God's goodness and providence. Or just be there. That's what some people need. 

Then I thought of the family, and my other friends who knew him, and cohutta springs, and the campers, and all the lives he touched. I thought, "man, I can't do much on this side f the world. I feel so bad. I guess all i can do is pray" 

All I can do is pray?

ALL I can do is pray?!?

As if it's my last resort that may or may not solve the problem.

MY JESUS IS EVERYTHING THOUGH! 

I remembered. Jesus is the best option. He's the best cure. He's still the answer for our world, for Christians and even for those who don't except him.

So yes, I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray and give it to Jesus; because let's face it, we never had control anyway. We never knew what we were doing. 

Jesus is going to hug the boarder's family. He's going to wipe the tears of all the camp staff at Cohutta springs. He's going to be near to my bro Jeff and all those affected. 

And He's going to do a good job. A bang up job. He's going to be so much more for them than what I ever could be.

So I'll pray here. I'll give it to God. I cry and mourn for all affected by this. I cry for all affected by sin, cause let's face it; that is the real problem. But nice thing about this war we're in: it's already been won. It's been won for the boarder, won for you, won for me. His death is but a testimony that God knows what He's doing. Still. 

So I will pray. It's ALL and EVERYTHING. That can be done. 

These tragedies may have hit close to home, but it's nice to know that this boarder and many other, myself included, are going to a better Home someday. 

You just wait and see. 

And pray. 

Praise be.

Defeated

"Never forget that our ultimate goal while here on this earth is to get others and ourselves ready for the Second Earth that will never end"


I will admit, one of the last things I want to do after I've been sick and dying all day and still managing to see patients, and not really eating, is to do some tutoring for math.

Math is the subject that I'm quite sure most kids hate because...well I'm not sure. I, for one, love math. My kids are no different. My kids don't like math probably because they don't get it. This is understandable. Math is hard. And yet, at the stage we are at, I wonder what has been going on in their math classes for the past 5 years. Actually, I'm curious what has been going on since they started class one.

One of the problems of being American is thinking that everyone on the earth has had a similar education that you had. Therefore, they should be on their way to being as smart as you. Another problem is thinking that everyone should be book smart. My kids, as I might have mentioned before, struggle with the basics: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Teaching class and tutoring can be a real struggle just because we must get around those problems. We're learning radicals, and they are unaware about negative numbers. We're trying to graph basic equations, and they are unaware of the coordinate plane and plotting points. I mention "x and y" and there is so much confusion in the air you would have thought I asked them to speak to me in fluent Italian.

Therefore, this makes my job very difficult because I feel like I'm playing catch up and teaching them everything they should have learned in class 5 instead of learning concepts from class 9 and 10.

And so when I teach, I feel defeated often. "Do these kids even understand this?!? Is my time being wasted? Do I need to stop and teach them this lesson they should have learned 3 years ago?" All are questions that flood my head. At the same time, I am reminded that they have to take end of the year exams that determine if they can go to the next grade. That is the big elephant in the room that always nudges me in the back.

I'm not sure what happened to the kids when they were young. I'm not sure why they are so far behind. I'm not sure who their teachers were or how they have made it this far. Pushed through just for the sake? Probably. Will they pass their math test? At this point, it's still true at that all things can be done through Christ; yet the voices in my head tell me it's not going to happen. And if they do, they will be pushed through just for the sake and they will continue along this road of confusion, thinking they know.

This is all "defeat" talking. He's pretty loud too and always wants to be heard.

But then the Spirit speaks. He says this: "it's ok. I've got this." Or Miss Ella will say, "kids don't remember as much what you teach them. They remember more how you made them feel"

And that calms me down. That assurance from The Lord and a godly friend put me back in line. My kids may not be the brightest colors in the crayon box. They might not be able to graph linear equations. They may be 20 and not really even know their times tables or how to subtract big numbers. They may not pass their test and they may have to repeat the class. Or they may never pass. They may not be doctors and nurses and lawyers and engineers and such. But then again, that's the American Dream that has polluted my mind and has been my focus.

But it's not about that.

It's not about that at all.

The most important thing for a Christian is to ready himself/herself and others for the kingdom.

That's pretty much it.

The way The Lord does that is of His choosing. For my kids, they just may do that work for The Lord with their education. They may surprise me, and do well, continue on, and some may be doctors and nurses. However, some may be seamstresses, carpenters, and cooks because they are incredible at those things, and great workers if you push them enough. And the great thing is that there is nothing wrong with that. At all. The Lord can reach more with a uneducated seamstress with her heart and mind set on winning souls for Christ than He can with the smartest brain surgeon whose focus is himself and self glory. That I know is the truth. For we aren't taking our fancy cars and nice homes or even our occupations to heaven. We're taking our characters. And to be quite honest, I have seen many more Christ like characters on this little compound than I have in much of America. Not saying that everyone here is perfect. But one thing these kids have learned is the importance of a life devoted to Jesus. Even more devoted than me I would say.

So yes, I am often defeated in my efforts to teach the kids math. But that's a little battle I'm willing to lose if the kids know I care about them, and that they can do it, and that heaven is rooting for them, and that they are important, and that I want to be like them when I grow up. And if I must sacrifice 5x + 4x for heaven with these blessed human beings, I think I win. ;)


Ala.ban.za

Happy Club

"Join a club. The people in it could become some of your best friends"

I am part of a group of guys here called Happy Club. It's simply me, the 7 high school boys, and two male teachers around my age. Since we all live in the same hostel, we spend a lot of time together. And because we're always happy, laughing and joking, Timrei found it appropriate to call us, Happy Club. Moreover, I think he got the name from some Indian movie, which is besides the point.

Happy Club does everything together. We eat at our table in the hostel that has our name on the table cloth we made ourselves (a big piece of green plastic nailed to the wooden table). We make chutney in our a Happy Club grinder and share the glory of hot food. We run around looking for jackfruit. We tell stories (they tell me the stories and I listen) around the table late at night. I tell them my love stories and how I vicariously live my love life through all my friends who are getting in relationships, getting married, and having children. I tell them about being forever alone. We sing special songs for church (I think I've taught them three songs so far). I help them with their homework and teach them English and Ebonics. They make things our of wood (their carpentry skills are amazing). I make them food or just give them my left over food for the day; it Is finished immediately. They say I cook better than the girls. We do insanity workouts together and I pretend to be Shaun T. We play volleyball and football. We take bucket showers outside and bathe at the waterfall. We go search for monkey fruit and other jungle food while getting leeches. We play chess. But what we do the most is play Uno.

When the guys discovered Uno, it was like they were introduced to gold. It at first began as a simple game. However, it turned into something crazy. The games became intense, fast paced, and extremely serious. They played so fast I couldn't even follow where the game was going. It got pretty frustrating at times with +2's and skip's and stacking cards. And before you know it, someone has won and you still have all your cards. The guys slap the cards down with such intensity, normally the pile is more on the floor than the table. The cards have become sticky and have black smudges on them because the guys play so much. I had to regulate how much they were able to play. It was taking too much of their time. And yet it is fun to play every once in a while.

But one thing that Happy Club does do is that they spend time with God. This is a pretty committed group of young men. They may only be 15 and 16 and some a little older, but they have taught me a lot about worship. They may sing some Jesus songs at the top of their lungs not in the most reverent way (I need to talk to them about that), but they pray religiously before every meal. They have that personal time with God every morning where I will sometimes over sleep and not make the time. They make statements like, "Worship is very important and we can't be late." They ask me questions about verses they read, showing that they are thinking intently about God's deep Word. They are the most thoughtful group of guys I have ever met, always thinking of others and self sacrificing. Giving up their chairs at the food table (if you knew the struggle of getting chairs here), making things for others when they hear there is even the slightest need (like the cooking island Silas made me when I mentioned out loud how it was difficult to cook food on my low lying desk because I'm 6 foot tall, or the cabinet Timrei made me to put clothes in when I asked him for one). They believe in Jesus and want Him to be a part of their lives. A few are actually getting baptized this weekend and it makes me exceedingly joyful. My "little brothers" are following the awesome Savior, and it's GREAT! More than great actually.

It's blessed. Right now one is singing one of the songs we taught him called 10,000 reasons. Praising Jesus at 5:30 in the morning? Oh yes, I like that. You could say Happy Club makes me VERY happy.

Bless The Lord oh my soul.

Inspirational Calendar

So I've decided that I will one day make a calendar with inspirational quotes on it for every day of the year. One will be like this, "Husbands love your wives. For chances are, if you don't, she might drink a glass of battery acid while 6 months pregnant with your child"

Worship was good today. Uncle Bill always has good bible studies for us. I have heard some and others are refreshers. I was falling asleep during this one just because the struggle was real when I was called out of the study for an emergency. At the time, Ms. Leishimi was still out and about delivering babies and saving the world. So I took this one. I grabbed one of the midwife students as a translator and went to see who was in trouble.

It was a young man about my age and a couple of small kids. As we approached them, there was an eeriness in the weather and just in the whole nature of this man's presence. Dilsmae, a midwife student, interrogated him.

"He says his wife has drunken half a glass of battery acid." She said it with such calmness in her voice, I at first thought she was joking.

"I'm sorry what! She drunk a glass of battery acid?!?" My response.

"Only half a glass...and she's 5 months pregnant."

"WHAT!?!?!" I quickly made an about face and quick stepped to Auntie Lois's house as all the questions flooded my brain.

Why would you drink a glass of battery acid?
Where do you even find enough battery acid to fill a glass?
WHAT?!?!
I'm sorry what?!?!

I bursted into Auntie's room with such authority. "Auntie, what do you do when a 5 month pregnant woman drinks half a glass of battery acid?"

Her eyes lit up like sunbeams. "CHARCOAL! Water! Charcoal water! And egg whites!" She said.

I explained the situation and she sent me off. We needed to dilute this poison before it took a bad turn for the mother and the baby both. 4 midwives tagged along as we swiftly grabbed supplies and made it down the hill. Of course it had finished raining about 30 min ago. However, the house was the closest house to the compound, bless The Lord. Walking wasn't a problem.

When we entered the house, my heart was racing. Of course this kind of emergency comes about when Ms. Leishimi is far away. I pushed the negative thoughts out of my head and trusted The Lord would provide the knowledge. This soon to be mother was looking rough. She was sprawled on the bed, drooling, flopped over and breathing with such mystery. She also seemed to be in pain with the noises she was making, but she didn't seem to be all there. In a state of unconsciousness I thought. I quickly called for the midwives and began giving orders. One to call 108, one to translate for me, one to crack the eggs I grabbed, one to grab everything else as my mind went a million miles a minute.

I did my vital signs. Everything was out of wack. Well this is great. I had water boiled to mix the charcoal in but went ahead and mixed some water and charcoal to get a head start. Then I realized, I'm not even sure if this woman can swallow anything. What is she aspirates?! Oh no. My life. And so I gave it a try. I gave her a very small amount of the egg white, and with a chin lift, she was actually able to swallow. Well bless. I tried again, just to make sure. No success. Ok let me try the charcoal water since it wasn't as thick. Yea, the black water most definitely just slid down the side of her mouth and made a mess.

So much struggle.

I kept doing vitals just to look busy as I thought about what to do next. IV. That was an option. I had to dilute the poison somehow and since PO wasn't going to work, I decided another route. But of course the IV was up the hill and of course the midwives wouldn't know where it would be. Choices: I go and pray she doesn't go into cardiac arrest, or I stay and try and send a midwife.

I went. So unhealthy and out of shape I felt as I ran up the hill thinking what happens if I pass out while trying to save someone? Well that would stink. When I reached the top, I grabbed everything: some NS, butterflies, iv sets, other things I might need. Then I grabbed my wallet in case of a hospital run. I met Major sir on the way and got a lift down to the house. He said we could meet the ambulance at the main road to save time.

When I got back on scene, thankfully the patient hadn't died. But she had thrown up all the charcoal water and egg whites we gave earlier. It was such a sad sight. In the anxiety, all my IV stuff went all over the place. Her veins were as thin as hairs, making it so much harder to find a vein. Not to mention I couldn't find my glove that I use for a tourniquet. So I got inventive and used a sock. I know how to make due. Even so, I was unable to get the IV with the time we had. We scratched the IV and just decided to meet the ambulance.

It looked like I was going to the hospital, and probably spending the night.

We carried her body down the steep incline to the sumo. "May God help us if I slip on this mud" I thought. Jesus take all the wheels.

While in the car, I kept my hands on her radial pulse just to be sure she had one. She laid in her husband's lap and the tears began to flow from his eyes as we drove.

Back story. This couple is rather interesting. From what we know the couple got married some time ago and things were fine. The wife gets pregnant and then the husband starts leaving for weeks at a time, not telling where he's going or when he is getting back. The wife is there alone. Then while at some distant location, he calls her up and tells her to buy a cow and bring her whole life to his parents's house. (Custom has it that the wife buys a cow and feeds the husband's family. Then the husband must move to the woman's village.) So I think that tied in with some other domestic issues pushed her over the edge and she wanted to end it.

They say love can make you do crazy things. But lack of love can make you do crazier things.

I kept close watch over the young woman. Pinal was her name. We slowly made our way down the incredibly bumpy road to the street. It was 10 o'clock. It would be a long night.

We got to the road and met that ambulance a couple of minutes later. Again we loaded her into another vehicle. This was one of the only times where it was good to be 6 foot tall in India. I was so mad when I got in the ambulance and there was no oxygen, iv, or pretty much anything that made an ambulance an ambulance, it was pretty much just a match box car that they painted with some ambulance design to make it look really cool. Even the pulse oximeter that one of the drivers gave me didn't work. (Keep in mind, the only qualifications that are needed to be an ambulance driver is to know how to drive real fast.) If something bad were to seriously happen she might just be out of luck.

In the ambulance we drove, up and down the winding roads, around the hills, making sharp turn after sharp turn going an unnecessary but a necessary speed. I stayed close to Pinal, my hands still on her pulse and constantly assessing her breathing in case I had to start CPR at any moment. Her husband and parents were right next to me, wondering who knows what. Praying? Maybe. Wondering after this doctor/nurse man who was from Africa? Probably. As for me, I was praying: for a spared life, for a second chance for Pinal, for The Lord to not let the devil take this soul, this precious soul, and the unborn baby with it. I had experienced some power in prayer before, so I figured it was time again to put it in the Lord's hands.

And then she threw up on me. 5 times. The vomit was colored like that of lime green koolaid and grass. And had specks in it. Not sure what that was. I kept her on her side so she wouldn't aspirate. Thank you nursing school. I knew a little something. I refrained from vomiting as best as possible as the ride continued along. Pinal's mother vomited. 'Twas marvelous.

We arrived at the hospital around 12 am that morning. They wheeled her in. Lenitha, the midwife student I brought with me, and I followed behind. The nurses and doctors didn't ask me any questions, which I found weird. How would they know what happened? You can't just treat someone without hearing some kind of report. Oh India. I stayed away but close enough to provide info if needed.

At this point, I went to search for phone network. There was none. Weird because we were in the middle of the city. I also checked to see how much money I brought with me in my stylish fanny pack. None. So mad. I could have sworn there was at least 1000 rupees. It must have fallen from my pack earlier in the night. And that's how I found myself in the middle of a big city at 12 am in the morning with no money to get home and no way to call back to the school. And my phone was almost dead. Please help in this one Lord, I prayed. It was out of my hands. He would have to provide.

Then the husband came from the back with a slip of paper. Lenitha said we had to go buy these meds from the pharmacy nearby. "Well of course I would love to walk the streets of downtown Tura at 12 am in the morning looking for a strange creepy pharmacy :D" My thoughts. I followed this man. We went around that corner and through that alley, and up that street and so on, braving the dark streets in search of medicine. I didn't know why the medicine couldn't just be sent through a shoot from somewhere in the hospital. You know, have the pharmacy actually be attached and not in Oz... American mentality.

We eventually found it after going and coming and asking for directions. All the lights were turned off except for one near the back of the pharmacy. We banged really hard on the outside gate and eventually a man in a mask came outside. We gave him our paper and he went back and then returned with our medicines. We gave the money through the gate.

And that is how I made my first drug deal!!

We returned to the hospital and they gave the medicines. Time to sleep. I sat in a chair against the wall and tried to rest my head. I knew my whole body would be sore in the morning. I slept for what seemed like a couple of hours, but discovered it had been only 20 min. My life is a lie. I prepared to sleep on the floor and then all of a sudden angels appeared. Well it was Mrs. Leishimi and Major Sir. Why they were here? I didn't know. But was I ecstatic because they brought the sumo and we could probably drive back tonight? Yes! Bless! Turns out a mother with a difficult labor needed hospital assistance. I was thankful for her problem because it kept me off the cold ground and stranded in a city for the night. I practically embraced them both. Not really. We did all we could for our patients and then decided to drive home because there was nothing else we could do. We could pray. But we could do that from home.

And so we drove. Lenitha, Mrs. Leishimi and another midwife student slept in the back while I told Major Sir stories in the front to keep him awake. Because it's never fun to drive at night while everyone else is sleep.

We arrived back to the compound at 2 am, after running over a big snake, twice, and getting caught in the mud. I lazily returned to my hostel and just thought about what had just happened, what I had just been a part of. Like wow. I prayed some more because you can never do too much of that when a woman drinks battery acid. And to take it all in, I decided to eat rice and Dahl because I was hungry and I do what I want.

And that was pretty much it. A day's work.

Bless.

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!

One of Those Days

Today began like any other day. 

I got up at 6 ish instead of 530 because the struggle was real. I had worship and lunch with the kids, my favorite parts of the day normally. I knew I would have to get in my relaxing time then and not later. Exam week was upon us and I hadn't written my exams yet. 

The plan was to write my exams and my test for the midwives. Mistake one was making a plan. 

One of the girls came by and asked for help with some math. I promised her I would help around 1030. I knew I could accomplish much before that. Mistake 2 was making that promise. While on the brink of complete productivity, Ms Leishimi called my cellphone, and I got the call in my dungeon basement room. Strange. No network there. 

It was an emergency of a boy I was told about by another garo man about 30 min earlier. I dropped everything, grabbed some emergency hospital money from the office and hopped on my motorcycle too fast and too furiously. Ha.

When I arrived on scene, the child looked so disheveled, I was surprised he was alive. Not only did he look extremely weak, he was yellow in the skin and was having difficultly breathing. This was probably due to the way his mother had him wrapped up and strapped to her back. We got report and did some assessments: 5 year old boy with high fever, jaundiced, high pulse, labored breathing, hadn't eaten in 4 days, dehydrated, barely drinking, had both malarias, everything. I was surprised he was still hanging on. We laid him down on the bed and kept close watch over him, making sure he was still breathing. 

I knew he would go to the hospital because he was just in too bad of shape. We dialed 108. As we waited, we learned more about the boy. Turns out he had a younger brother once who had the same sickness and died from it not too long ago. Strange. Why did the parents wait until now to call us? Why didn't they call when he hadn't eaten in 2 days? Why weren't they proactive? Did they want to lose another one? I was so upset... And yet, we waited, prayed, reassessed, prayed some more. We gave him little bits of water because he would have aspirated if given more. He was that weak. We would have given an IV but didn't come prepared. We would have given medicine but there was no food in his system. At a loss. So, we continued to wait. 

We prayed some more. The family did a group catholic prayer. I was lost. I prayed some more.

Then the ambulance finally came, and we loaded the boy and family into the back. They left swiftly, knowing the emergency. Moreover, the ambulance did not have oxygen or an IV on board -____- so upset. 

I kept praying.

Mrs. Leishimi and I went back to the compound and tried to get some other work done. As soon as we sat down to settle some bills, another lady called. She told us her husband was very sick and we needed to come fast. Thinking it was just as bad as the case from 1 hour ago, we dropped everything and went back out. 

We were surprised to find this man calmly sitting in a chair. He looked alright. He wasn't sprawled on the floor, barely moving, and disheveled like the other boy. He actually looked fine... "When it isn't an emergency," I said out loud. We did an assessment on him: a little jaundiced, had gone to the toilet 15 times that day, weak, low blood pressure, pain and weakness. Hadn't eaten well. Malaria. Yep. Case 2. 

So he was an emergency. But treatable at home. We gave him some antibiotics, the malaria medicine, and went on our way. Emergency 2 done

One of the blessings thus far was the ability to drive the wakers and not have to walk. Mmm

We got back the second time and I actually got to sit down for a couple of minutes and eat and breathe. I went back to the student I promised to help. I told her I would come back soon to help her.

And then that didn't happen. 

Around 3, right as Mrs. Leishimi was about to take class, another patient called in severe distress. I had to take this one. And so I rolled over and headed out with Likan, my translator, hoping and praying this would be a quick fix and I would be able to come back and be a teacher again.

Spoiler alert. It wasn't a quick fix.

This lady, probably around the age of 50, looked rough. She was lying in bed groaning with very irregular breathing, and fever. Word from the husband was that she also hadn't eaten in 4 days and was drinking water here and there. Her vitals were all but normal and she had both malarias when I checked her. She also wasn't responding well to stimuli: her name being called, touch, pain. She looked so serious, I thought hospital treatment was best. I consulted with Mrs. Leishimi on the phone. She came from class to assess herself. 

We decided to try and stabilize her with an IV and medicine and then give malaria meds. It's interesting how nervous I get when doing nursing skills that I have known for so long but in a different setting. Like in the jungle. Maybe my nervousness isn't out of the ordinary. After attaching fluid and giving IV meds, we then waited. And waited.

And waited.

And by some miracle, she actually started to get well. Alabanza to the Lord I thought. We gave her some food, kept assessing, talked to the family.

Then the rain came. This normally isn't a problem, except I didn't bring a jacket. And we had to somehow drive the bikes back because they couldn't be at this man's house the whole night. They would get stolen. We brainstormed our options: push them to a neighbor's, leave them in the road, drive them back on the treacherous, muddy, slippery, dark road.

As we pondered, we watched the IV slowly drip into her body. She came to. In fact, by prayer and the Lord alone, she was actually able to get up and use the restroom with some help. That was wild. To go from bedridden to walking. Miracles. I believe in the small ones.

When the IV finally finished, we hooked up a new one and packed up to leave. The father would take care of the rest he said. Thankfully, by this time the rain had stopped. Only slick wet road to overcome. So we prayed, got on our bikes and drove very slowly through the dark jungle, back to the compound. We didn't die, as you can see; I'm writing this. We got back around 9, which is late for us. Very. Bless the Lord others were praying for our safety, however. Moreover so thankful all is in the hands of Jesus. 

On my way back to my room someone asked me how the day went. "Oh, you know. Just one of those days." 

Hmm

A Shout Out

This is a shout out. 

A shout out to my first haircut in India.

A shout out to the "little clippers that could" for cutting my hair. When I originally thought it wouldn't be strong enough to cut thick African American hair, I should have went with that original thought.

A shout out to using my bed sheet as the draw sheet around my neck. It wasn't as effective as a barber's, but hey, I'm in India. 

A shout out to trying to use a guard to cut a little bit at a time. It wasn't really working because my hair is as thick as the jungle here. And so thought, ok maybe I'll just do no guard and take it all off. And so I went straight razor and shaved off a little portion in the front. Then I felt the clippers catch my Aunt Jemimah thick curls and I heard the struggle the clippers were having... I thought, oh snap, these clippers aren't Goin to be able to finish the job I have just started.

A shout out to my sympathetic nervous system for putting me in fight or flight mode as I thought I would look so trashy with the barely started haircut. 

And then a shout out to Sengnap sir for coming to the rescue. He's a Garo teacher here. Pretty cool dude. He offered to take over. And so he took the clippers and went to work. I could tell this was his hardest cut yet. After trying so hard with "the little clippers that could" and making such little progress, he decided to use his barber scissors. I was very skeptical at first, thinking there is no way this will work, but...

A shout out to Sengnap sir for being the man and cutting my hair with scissors. He cut it low enough so that "the little clippers that could" could finish the job. It took over an hour, but I'll take it. 

A shout out to being bald. It wasn't a bad look. I decided to keep the beard cause the bros from home told me I had to keep the hair growing for the whole year.

A shout out to being a bald bearded man. Everyone thinks I'm a grieving Hindu because supposedly, that's what grieving Hindus do: they shave their heads. This would be interesting I thought. 

A shout out to new things. To new experiences. To living a little recklessly with no regrets. 

A shout out to Jesus for giving me this incredible opportunity to serve.

A shout out to Alabanza.