Happy Resurection Sunday

TEN THINGS GOD WON'T ASK ON THAT DAY.

1.... God won't ask what kind of car you drove. He'll ask how many people you drove who didn't have transportation..

2.... God won't ask the square footage of your house, He'll ask how many people you welcomed into your home.

3.... God won't ask about the clothes you had in your closet, He'll ask how many you helped to clothe.

4.... God won't ask what your highest salary was. He'll ask if you compromised your character to obtain it.

5.... God won't ask what your job title was. He'll ask if you performed your job to the best of your ability.

6.... God won't ask how many friends you had. He'll ask how many people to whom you were a friend.

7.... God won't ask in what neighborhood you lived, He'll ask how you treated your neighbors.

8.... God won't ask about the color of your skin, He'll ask about the content of your character.

9.... God won't ask why it took you so long to seek Salvation. He'll lovingly take you to your mansion in heaven,if You've asked Him into your heart, and not to the gates of Hell.

10.... God won't have to ask how many people you forwarded this to, He already knows your decision.

INGRID Happy Birthday Micah

Some of the 212 students I look after and look for

More things to ponder!!! INGRID

I have written to some of you privately about what I see in the hospital. I know every time I go to the maternity ward I will see some new amazing thing, so I try not to look. Because we have started a new rotation of students and these students are fresh to the ward they show up, pay attention, and are eager. Because the nurses on the wards are use to the other students who are more mature and have been on the wards for longer (but are now preparing for tests) they think the new kids have the knowledge and have them do way more then they should. I try to run interference and see, what they are doing on the wards. Since maternity is so large, 2 wings for C sections with 15 beds in each ward plus floor space, 1 wing for mothers who lost the babe after C sections, children who were defiled and female gyn diseases (eg cervical cancer, tumors, and a whole variety of thing you read about but only see here) then the delivery ward. 4 rooms to birth and the whole large floor to lay on or walk on as you labor I try to do a little at a time. The delivery room floor is also where the mothers who had the baby earlier are laying out the 12 hours they stay before going home, unless you are hemorrhaging then you get a bed, or you deliver before the bed is full again, we have 4 of those beds otherwise you get the floor. So, I go in a curtained room in delivery where the mom's actually deliver to where I see students going to see what they are observing. (Make sure they aren't doing some “Procedure” they would have no idea on how to do....)

Some pictures of healthy babies

I come upon the midwife with an ambu bag (what you give breaths with in CPR) and a very limp baby.

She is bagging (giving breaths) with the bag and then massaging the chest to get the air out. I watch see there is no heart beat and start chest compressions. Just like Sheri Hittesdorf taught me at Sleepy Eye Hospital just a few months back. I remember all the equipment we use to have out for each birth at Sleepy Eye and all the training I had on drugs and umbilical lines and checking sugar and all we have is an ambu bag, a midwife who sorta knows how to use it, an adult stethoscope, me, and some students watching. What amazed me is how common place this whole thing seemed. The Holy Spirit whispered to go look, the midwife was doing what she knew to do and I found myself doing chest compressions. When I realized what really, really, I was doing I started to pray. We worked on the baby about 5-6 minutes her heart started beating and she started breathing on her own. By now the adrenaline is rushing where before I didn't feel any of that. Just that calmness that comes when I pray or cook or go for a walk when I am wound up. I decided not to count students in this ward today and left onto another ward on the other side of the campus so I could have a walk...

A set of healthy boys

The stations of the cross were later that Wednesday, at the Catholic Missionary house who does the radio program. She does the kids version so the kids of the other missionary can participate. (This is the simple form of the stations) After each station there are questions and when Jesus's falls and is helped the question is have you ever helped someone up who needed that help. Smack! the incident of earlier comes flooding back. Now the question, did I do the right thing?

Next day, I go to the ward, Dr is doing rounds on 38 C Sectioned women and start looking for the baby and mother of yesterday. One of the students who was watching yesterday and speaks Lugbara helped me. We found the mom and baby who she named INGRID. I unwrapped the baby and she was seizing. Mom said she was to get antibiotics and she did after birth (they put IV's in as they have no equipment for umbilical lines) but the IV fell out and no one put one back in for the mess. It is now 20 hours later She was septic from too long a birth process and having swallowed her own BM during birth. Babys' do that when in distress. Little Ingrid had severe cerebral palsy from no oxygen for too long after birth. I held her and talked to mom. She is 19, 1^st time mom, and she knew, but needed to hear baby was not going to be all she hoped for. She asked me hard questions. I recalled a dad in St Cloud asking me those same questions 25 years ago and I knew the baby had cereal palsy but I lied. Sometime it is nice to be older and learned how it feels to lie and carry it around so you don't want to do it again. I could tell her the truth while little INGRID continued to have seizures.

a healthy set of girls

Now again the question, did I do the right thing? Do any of you ask that question? Did I do what I was suppose to do? Was that your voice God, why would you want a life to suffer the injustice of being in a place where she has limited chance of survival? Was it really my selfishness to do the chest compressions because I could, because I know how, but I don't live with the consequences of the decision? Later in the day, 2 pediatricians from MN here visiting their daughter a education PC volunteer came to see the hospital for a tour. Margie (from Hennapin ER) looked to at INGRID and the conclusion was the same, her Cerebral Palsy was severe and her survival may be short. She was breast feeding well so she had good suck and could nourish herself. The small village this mother is from is where Ilse (the PC volunteer) is from. Her mother was encouraged that the child had another pair of eyes to watch and help the mom to see value in this little life.

Have I come to any conclusions? Have I answered any of these questions for myself? And really is this about me? It sure felt like it...

The mother and sister of the 1st baby

The Reilly’s sent me a TIME magazine and Rick Santorum was interviewed ( I didn't know he was running for president) with his daughter in his arms. She looks to have a disability and from the article I gathered he lost a child who was born and had severe handicaps. His statement reminded me all life has value and they as parents enjoyed the time as brief as it was with their child. If God did not want that child to live nothing I could do would change it, so it wasn't about me but about seeing his GRACE to be part of a miracle. Thank YOU LORD for your GOOD GOODNESS and for GOOD FRIDAY and the forgiveness you gave for a selfish sinner like me. 

Love from Arua      Happy Resurrection Sunday

 

Palm Sunday

Accommodations for visitors. The new RV of Africa

A random picture to keep you interested

A Fresh look at Palm Sunday

Watching the liturgical calender and how it is celebrated in a place that has been invaded, where children were taken to be soldiers & brides, perspective is different and it helps me listen to sermons and read the Bible in a new way.

Palms were sold in town and every one has one. They have them on the bodas in the front headlamp, they have them on the bicycle bodas tied to the center steering column, everyone is walking with them. These aren't the whimpy ones we have in the states this is the whole palm branch. It is just opening so when you wave it, it flutters and makes a pretty noise like the wind blowing through it. The lines to get a palm branch yesterday were crazy. Cars don't have traffic laws so they come from all directions and park behind each other, boda's can get through any thing so they pull up and dash off, bicycles same, and people en masse crowding around for the 50 shilling branch.(2cents). Today at church, when they would say Hosanna we said it back and shook the branches for a bit. Ugandans are big about show.

We were late, so sat outside on a bench and this space was full too so we had lots of palm branches shimmering and lofting in the breeze. You really got a better idea of the sense of the triumphal entry.

Then the sermon was about Jesus last week. But, the pastor told it from the perspective of the parables Jesus had told before he got to Jerusalem. The lost son (prodigal) the lost sheep the lost coin. Forgive for recapping it if you already went to church. The lost son runs back to dad and dad has already forgiven him, he doesn't even need to ask. Just to come home he had to humble himself. These are the party people who realize they screwed up and run to God wanting their life to be different they go home to start over and this time get it right.

The lost sheep is another lost soul who followed the goats too far and is making noises to God who obliges and keeps calling them back until they find each other. Maybe those we know who grew up knowing the greatness of God but living respectable lives not knowing they are really lost all the time with out God and then just consult him when in a bind,. They keep making noise until they get it that they are still lost without God to guide them all the time. 

a sheep outside the church yard, the grass is green here

Then the coin . The coin is lost in the house this perspective was the congregation who were in the (church) house and lost. Pastor likened them to the people in the church who God has to remind that they are still sinners still lost and still in need of His grace. So, he keeps adding more light and sweeping so we don't get lost in our RELIGION and tradirions . So, the prodigal knows he screwed up and wants to come back, the sheep thinks he is doing fine on his own and God is the help you call when needed, and the coin is in the church and thinks he has got GOD understood. You really have to search hard and sweep and add extra light to find it as it is just sitting there. So, for Palm Sunday Jesus has the prodigals and sheep with him and goes to try one more time for the coin. Monday he starts by throwing out the money changers in the outer temple courts and he keeps working his way inward. Until GOD tears the veil that separates HIM from us. So, the GOOD NEWS has started, God came down to save me from my self and wants to show me his better way... Who have you told this too?

a goat outside the church yard

People are dying to hear it. Just some thought to ponder for your HOLY WEEK or is it GODS Holy Week? Which will you make it Marcy? Love from Africa where it is still hot hot hot...