Malaria...AGAIN

How did this happen?? I am quite perplexed. But the symptoms don't lie and the test was confirmed yesterday. I have malaria parasites running around in my blood again. God, you know I miss Africa...but maybe not this much! I think I could do without the fevers, nausea, headaches. I feel like I should be in Tchad, lying out on my mat, my African family all laughing about me living up to my name "La malade" (the sick one).

One thing I do miss is that when I had malaria in Africa, I still continued to work at the hospital as much as I was capable. Still helped people. It made the focus on them instead of me. Here, everyone is freaking out, trying to get me into the hospital. I appreciate the concern. It is so nice to know people care. But I really wish I could change the focus that is on me. It makes me feel so sorry for myself, thinking about how I'm getting so behind in classes, feeling awful,.... How do I explain that I really just want to go do a surgery on someone right now. I want to go hand out quinine to the other 20 people at the hospital that have malaria with me. There were those moments where I'd watch a kid take his last breath and realize that he just died from the same disease that was raging through my body at the same moment. But that made me realize how my life is totally God's. If he was still giving me life, than he has a purpose for me. Am I continuing to look for and follow that purpose? Maybe this malaria bout is a good reminder.

God, I am yours.

Frustrations, Africa, thoughts...

This week has been one of the most frustrating...so much has seemed to go wrong...college is wearing me out, my car broke down, and I want more sleep!!! This morning, I was at the point of running in a hole to hide from any contact with the world (there are no mountains to run to in Nebraska, so I'm stuck with holes). I realized that I was desperately needing a mind shift -- so I took a class period today to talk with God and remember amazing things He has done. Automatically my thoughts turned to Africa as they often do, and it didn't take very long for me to get to the point of "God. You've done so much in my life. Why do I ever even doubt?" Everything that has happened this week seems so small now in comparison to the things I faced in Africa. I was just realizing that I haven't really been sick since before Christmas! Three months being healthy?! That was unheard of last year, when I counted myself blessed to go maybe two weeks without being ravaged by another bout of malaria or some other parasitic disease.

I can also see how living back in the States, being in college, has changed my thinking so much more inward instead of outward. Everything I'm worried about and frustrated with has to do with myself. I remember when all my worries were consumed with my patients, the people around me...when did that change?

My thoughts today have come to, "we are not of this world" therefore, why do I even worry about things in this world. They are nothing. This morning I listened to the song "I will lift my eyes" by Bebo Norman that we used to play over and over in Africa. Such good thoughts.

God, my God, I cry out
Your beloved needs You now
God, be near, calm my fear
And take my doubt

Your kindness is what pulls me up
Your love is all that draws me in

I will lift my eyes to the Maker
Of the mountains I can't climb
I will lift my eyes to the Calmer
Of the oceans raging wild
I will lift my eyes to the Healer
Of the hurt I hold inside
I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes to You


Just the thought I need to hold onto right now,

I will lift my eyes to my Maker...

O Christmas Tree...

This Sabbath I got to go find a Christmas tree to cut down with my friends Keri and David. I couldn't help but think of when Liz and I decided we needed to find and cut one down in Africa last year. That "tree" had 3-inch thorns sticking out of it, but otherwise I would have to say that trees here in Nebraska look as Charlie Brownish as the bushes we found in Africa -- rather sparse. But it smells good! Everyone on our hall can smell our tree.

A week pursuing God...

So yesterday ever since I woke up, I had this intense feeling that God was trying to get my attention. I spent a while praying, contemplating, listening...but felt like I wasn't every truly giving God all of my attention because of all the distractions on my mind. I also haven't had the time with God these last couple weeks that I wish to have each day. So this led me to my decision that I am going on a fast this week. I have never fasted before, but felt lead to do it, so I will be fasting until Sabbath - just liquids and some fruit to keep me from my propensity to pass out :-) I'm also going to cut my study time in half each day, and use the extra time to completely focus on God and my relationship with him. I think it is going to be difficult but also very rewarding. I don't expect necessarily that God is going to reveal some amazing thing to me...maybe all he wants is for me to see how such a daily focus on him can change my thoughts and keep me looking up more. I just ask that you keep me in your prayers this week. I just realized that God sure picked the right week to challenge me in making time for him as I just received my French course that adds 3 credits to my already full class load. AND I am starting my 2nd job tomorrow that will probably add about 20 hrs. of work to my week. But I'm determined to do this - this week.

Part of my goal...

"The place where we must always register God's presence is in our minds, our thoughts and feelings, our inner being. That means that my job in my spiritual life is to learn to continually focus my attention on God...the practice of spiritual life boils down to one single statement from Scripture: 'I have set the Lord always before me.' Psalm 16:8"
-Now What by John Ortberg (one of my favorite authors)

Romans 12

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you:

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.

Embracing what God does for you
is the best thing you can do for him.

Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.

Instead, fix your attention on God.
You'll be changed from the inside out.

Readily recognize what he wants from you, and
quickly respond to it.

Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Memories

Little things here and there send my mind whirling back to memories of last year. We just dissected pig lungs in my EMT II class and the clamps and scalpel in my hand felt strangely familiar. I can see a vision right now of Dr. Bond doing a gallbladder surgery and suddenly hitting a bleeder that shot out spurting blood all over both of us. He kept trying to clamp it, but the area was too small and deep to get his hand into. So while holding pressure on it, he gave me a quick 30 second lesson on what I should do, handed me the clamp and had me stick my small hand down into the hole and clamp it off.

Today I was washing my hands in the dorm bathroom. When finished I realized there was no more paper to dry my hands off with. As I walked back to my room with my hands held up dripping, I started having visions of scrubbing in to surgeries in the outer room of the OR in Bere and then learning to kick with my foot just the right way on the door handle to open it so that I could enter without contaminating my hands. (It didn't work on my dorm door)

Anguish

So forget that last post. It doesn't matter what I do, my mind is completely caught up in Africa. I've tried so hard to focus on my studies, on my dorm pastor job, on making new friends, on ANYTHING!!! But my thoughts are consumed with Africa, the people in Bere, and mostly - Darfur. The fact that thousands are being killed while I'm listening to lectures is driving me crazy. I've done everything I can think of to be a part of what's happening over there, without actually dropping everything that I'm doing to focus on it. But calling representatives and senators feels like a lost cause. Telling the people around me has been frustrating as they don't care. I've been careful to conceal the battle going on inside me as I do the expected duties as a student, but I'm afraid of breaking apart soon.

This evening I felt so tormented by it, that I was pacing back and forth in my room,
not knowing what was happening to me or why I am so obsessed with this. My mind is a multitude of thoughts and pictures that keep reeling around and around and multiplying. If I sit around another week just going along with my little American life, I'm going to go insane! Why am I feeling so much anguish God? Are you trying to tell me something? Should I forget society's expectations and go follow my heart and get involved? Or is this just another phase I need to work through and get over? I am so confused! I cry almost every night now for people that I don't even know. Why? It takes me hours to fall asleep at night because of my thoughts. Why?

Why can't people ever see our world as just that - one whole world, one group of people. Everything is broken up and divided into our countries, jealous for our own prestige and success, only reaching out to others when it helps us. We are all humans! One people created by God. When will the horror over there stop?

I've tried to ask for advice from the people I usually do, and explain the anguish I feel, but this time it seems no one has understood. I get told to focus on the ministry around me, and I've tried! I get the feeling from others that they think I'm just in a transition phase still from last year...and maybe I am. One person I talked to and poured out all my feelings and frustrations and horror on the terror going on over in Darfur. After I finished, I heard a pause, and then they asked, "How is the weather over there in Nebraska right now?" I couldn't believe it! Did everything I just say just pass through deaf ears? Am I just a maniac with crazy thoughts that no one else thinks? Tonight as the tears came again, I searched my phone for someone to call who I could talk to about it, but finally gave up. So I'm writing in this blog again to at least maybe give me enough release from my thoughts so that I can sleep.

I could just go on with my life and ignore everything, or make a rash decision and quit school to be a part of something, but I'm not satisfied with either action until I feel God with me in it. So I guess I will just keep searching and asking God for answers.

Love God, Love People, Love Life

I've felt the weeks of school dragging by as my mind is constantly on Africa. I constantly bemoan the fact that I can't be there and have seen no point to the endless lectures and classes.

Today, though, I realized that it is time wake up and enjoy the life God has given me! Close to a year ago, I should have died, but God showed that He still has plans for my life here on earth. So why am I living every moment in the past?! There will always be a part of me in Bere and maybe I'll even go back, but right now is the time to focus on what I'm doing here and now. And I'm not talking about focusing on myself, I'm talking about focusing on the people around me right now. God has called each of us, individually, to serve.

This new outlook is making my mood better, and has started to reveal areas that I've changed since I was in Africa. I was sitting in the cafeteria today listening to the people around me talk and I was amazed. The popular topic was the new chapel credits that everyone is "forced" to get each semester. Most students are upset that they are now required to go to some chapels and are even finding ways to protest. While I understand some of the frustration and feelings that we should be free to decide what we want to go to, why do we always just see the negative side of things? We are given such an opportunity to have a place to worship, to have such wonderful services planned for us! Last year I would have died to go to a vespers/worship/chapel service just once! I missed the fellowship and worshiping of God so much.

That thought led me to the next topic of how expensive the cafe food is, which I am guilty of complaining of almost daily :) Why do we complain so much?! I looked at my meal today and thought how blessed I've been to have so many different choices, and amazing tastes. No boule or spit sauce. And the water...we have clean clear water by the gallons! No worries of diseases or of our well going dry.

If you have $10 in your pocket, food in abundance, a friend to talk to, a comfy bed, and can smell the scent of flowers in the air...count yourself blessed!

Go out and enjoy this fantastic day!