The More the Merrier!

Dr. Veronica Kramer, Michael, and I

     The general mood of the compound was dampened Wednesday by a death.  His name was Illiya, and he has been working in the hospital’s pharmacy for some time now.  Prone to epileptic seizures and living on his own led to his untimely death sometime Tuesday night.  I never knew or met the man, but his death has indirectly had an impact on me.  Praise God, he is our brother in Christ and rests now in eternal peace. There are many here who knew him and cherished him, and I’m glad they have the hope that one day they will see him again.  My previous experiences with death here at the hospital was very different.  Death is so commonplace that it seems most people show no emotion or shock, even at the death of their own child.  This man’s death was not the same.  His life must have had quite an impact because the shop and most of the hospital were shut down Wednesday at the news of his death. 
    I was able to attend the funeral on Wednesday where over 200 hundred people gathered.  Traditionally all the men gathered closely around the open grave and the women stood back. The head pastor talked about Illiya and then the floor was opened to whoever else wanted speak.  To those who had been at a funeral before, they were surprised at the way people stumbled over each other trying to get in a word about this man.  He was indeed highly respected.   
    We had a new friend join us Wednesday morning.  Will O’Kelly spent 5 years of his life in Niger just down the road.  It’s been a while for him and he’s happy to be back.  I was surprised to learn that he is a fellow pre-med student going into his junior year.  Out here it’s pretty great to have someone facing some of the same difficulties, who has the some of the same interests as you.  We already had a good conversation Friday about school and about the difficulties we face ahead.  Both of us are worried about how intensive school will be, and the sacrifices we have to make like seeing our families or even having a hobby.  And most importantly will we be able to stay faithful to God during these times?  I’ve experienced intimacy with God in incredible ways during times of difficulty and trial, but I must make the decision to lean into him or to lean away.  
    We are also expecting another Michael to come in sometime soon.  He happens to be best friends with Will but has never been overseas.  Here on the compound they originally planned to put in 2 new duplexes this summer, but it looks like only 1 will be finished.  I say this because Michael, an undergraduate architect student, is expected to draw up plans for this house.  I continue to be surprised and impressed at the incredible confidence they have in people with little experience.  Out here you just have to use what you’ve got I suppose.  I was even asked to look into solving foundation problems for some of the houses the other day.  I don’t think that’s going to happen... Michael, the medical student here now, is being asked to do things he’s never done before and things he feels uncomfortable doing.  Praise God though that he is doing an amazing job and is beginning to feel more and more confident about his abilities.  I feel a bit more confident with the wood work I’m doing as well.  It’s been a good thing to be pushed out of my comfort zone a bit.  It’s also been good to be able to give back.  I spent a lot of time in the hospital the first few weeks here and now I’m a bit relieved to find that I’m actually doing something to benefit the community.  I’m mostly doing small general repairs around the compound that have been put off again and again.  Nothing too exciting to report.  Will and I are going to be in charge of uprooting and moving the compound playground pretty soon here.  That should be an interesting challenge.
    Dinner for the past few nights was awesome.  One of the biggest reasons why is that I didn’t cook it.  Providing a meal requires a lot time and resources, but to the people here they could care less about those things.  To enjoy a meal with others is worth 10x the effort it takes to prepare one in their eyes.  I’m beginning to believe that too.  I just fear that if I ever entertain people at my house they probably will go home hungry and I’ll be stuck with a lot of leftovers... Haha I think it’s better that I stick to washing their dishes and bringing ingredients when they’re needed.  The days continue to fly by here.  Sometimes I find myself wishing I could stay for the fall semester.  As so many have warned me, I’m finding that the time I have here is just enough to get comfortable and then I get on the plane and leave. 
     It's personally been a blessing being here.  Even though I'm busy, there always seems to be time to reflect and do some soul searching.  Every day I'm surprised again with how much there is left to learn.  God is so good to afford me patience in learning these things.  I’m beginning to believe that growing up doesn’t have a finish line.  I was reminded yesterday that the joy of the journey can be one of the best parts if you so choose!

Why I'm still alive. (Got your attention didn't I?)

This picture shall soon be explained..

Greetings!
    If there was a sport called blogging, I’d be dead last.  I always struggled to keep a personal journal, so I can assure you, remembering to blog isn’t much easier.  My apologies for keeping you all in the dark.  I’m still alive I promise! 
    It occurred to me that I left you with some cliffhangers and lacking information which hopefully I can fill for you quickly.  I noticed that I mentioned MIchael quite a lot but failed to explain who this awesome guy is.  He just finished his 3rd year in medical school and is on his way to become a general surgeon.  His kindness towards me started the day I got here.  We happen to be neighbors which has helped so much.  I mentioned before that the hospital can be a dark place, but I was foolish to forget what a wonderful place of healing and life it is as well.  The doctors do a wonderful job with the little they have.  Surgery is a frightening and beautiful thing to watch.  Thanks to the Galmi hospital, many have survived that otherwise would have not.  Some are blessed to go through rehab and learn how to live without a limb or with a limp.  It can be a sad place, but there is beauty here too :)
    Also a crucial piece of information was left out.  I have received my second bag!  It came no more than a week after I’d arrived in Galmi (6/1) and just in time for me to stop missing it.  Having toiletries is a blessing though haha.  I’m so sorry I didn’t mention this sooner as I asked you all to be in prayer for it.  Well, God answered! I believe that fills in the gaps, so I’ll go ahead and try to catch you up on all that’s happened recently. 

Here's a complete crutch

      I don’t think I’ll ever be certain what my week is going to look like, seeing that I’ve basically woken up each morning and then found out where I’m going.  I’ve hardly been in the hospital at all this week.  Most of my time has been helping Abraham build crutches for the people in the hospital.  This was my first big assignment in the shop, to smooth out the process for building the crutches and cut down on errors.  So far so good; I’m praying diligently that these things turn out good for the sake of our Occupational Therapist, Deb.  Deb is pretty darn awesome.  She jokingly claims to be the best OT ever and I’m beginning to think she is.  Unfortunately the crutch issue has caused her a great deal of frustration and has cost her a lot time she didn’t have, fixing small, significant problems so the crutches could function.  I really do pray that everything I’m doing to help gives her a break. 
    The rest of my time has been spent doing odd jobs like fixing cabinet hinges, sealing off holes in the ceiling, and general repairs around an empty house.  My father and the experience I’ve had with him has been a tremendous help.  Just being comfortable with the tools I’m using has made things so much easier.  Maybe being the “miracle carpenter” isn’t so bad after all...

   
 Pictured left to right, top to bottom:  Deb, Grace, Me, Noemi, Christina, Mrs. Zoolkoski, and Glory all just before Glory and the Zoolkoski's headed out.
 
Home life here is good.  I have commodities like filtered water, a refrigerator, an oven, and even a microwave!  It’s so nice to have internet here.  Again I praise God for Michael, who on top of being a brilliant medical student has been gifted with the ability to work with computers.  The internet here is working much better than it has been, and I anticipate when he leaves a week early than I that I may not have contact with the outside world for a while.  Yes, he’s that good.  My breakfast and lunch have consistently been the same.  2 scrambled eggs for breakfast and PB&J for lunch.  The peanut butter here is fantastic!  Home made, no preservatives.  Yummmm!  As for dinner, thankfully Michael isn’t the only one who likes to cook.  Both Deb and Veronica, our pediatrician, have had us over once or twice and sent me home with leftovers.  The dinners I’ve cooked so far consisted of spaghetti, rice, and more PB&J.  I was frightened into believing that cooking experiments are a terrible idea so I’m wondering if I’ll ever break the trend. 
    This is the part where the lovely fire picture gets explained.  Some nights ago, Veronic made awesome french fries, some potatoes boiled in cooking oil.  Last night night I decided it was my turn.  (I have enough small potatoes in my fridge for all of Galmi).  I pulled out a small pot, poured in a decent amount of cooking oil, and set it on the burner.  This was exciting! I could already taste the fried taters.  They were cut and ready to be put in.  As I waited for it to boil I turned to the sink to wash a dish I needed.  I heard a crackle and turned to see that fire was coming out from under the lid.  At this point I don’t know what to blame it on, maybe lack of sleep?  I’m leaning towards sheer stupidity.  Forgetting that oil fires and water don’t mix I proceed to pour a bit on.  It didn’t take much to fill my kitchen with thick black smoke and my small fire erupt in to a raging column of flames.  Now, thank goodness, the picture you see is not from my cooking failure rather from a fun thing my friends and I do back at home called a wax bomb.  Just boil wax and add water and tada! A beautiful fire column towering as high as 30 feet.  You think after having done this multiple times that it might have crossed my mind not to add water.  Nope.  Having a small scale one in my kitchen when I least expected it was not so exciting, neither is the lingering smell that has soaked into the walls and the majority of my belongings.  I’m just glad I’m safe honestly.  That could have been much much worse.  Once again Michael to the rescue.  He happened to have a large fan that I used to channel out the cloud of fumes to make my home habitable again.  I just noticed that the cobwebs lining my ceiling are now saturated with ashes of oil... But life is good :) I’m healthy and safe from harm, which is more than I could say for most people here. 
    I realize how long this blog is and hopefully it hasn’t gotten terribly dull yet.  I’ve saved the most important for last.  Recently, it occurred to me that although I love many people, I was missing a crucial piece to loving them completely.  Suddenly I realized in my relationships with God and the friends and family I love so dearly, I have been intentionally getting to know them.  To really know a loved one implies that you know their needs, personality, bad habits, favorite hobbies.  You know what makes them who they are, or at least you try your best to.  Without this knowledge, how can you attend to their specific needs?  How can you love them if you don’t know how they accept love best?  Even in the Bible there are times when to know implies the highest level of intimacy.  As incredibly basic as it sounds, I understand more fully now.  I would go so far as to say that you cannot claim to truly love a person if you do know them.  What you and what I called love is just a shadow, cast by the real thing. 
    Taking this in is overwhelming.  So I’m supposed to fully know God and his people before I can ever claim to love them??  I quickly reminded myself that I am human and there is no way that’s possible.  I remember hearing stories about couples, late in their life, saying they feel they know so much about their spouse, yet they feel that the journey to knowing them completely will never be over.  The same certainly holds true for God.  We are finite beings, how could I EVER hope to grasp even a small measure of who God is in this lifetime?  So I see then that this quest to know others and to know God goes in hand with a patient attitude and the eager mind of a child, curious and never satisfied with just one question answered. 
    I didn’t want to sound preachy.  I apologize if I did.  I feel like writing here is the first time I really got to process it and I ask for your help in prayer if you think of me.  I realize that understanding this finally has been a personal answer to prayer and a reminder that I know so so little.  Praise God that He is a big god and that He cares for us individually as well as a whole.  The sheer amount of metaphorical dross to be melted away in my life is huge!  And then I’m reminded: 

    “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give   
      him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil , know how to give good gifrts to your children, how
      much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” - Matthew 7:9-10
   
    “I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard see, you can say to this mountain,
     ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” - Matthew 17:20

Blessings,
Josh

Hello's and Goodbye's

Behold! Nails + Hammer + Cluelessness = pallet

Hello friends!
    Since the last update on Sunday I’ve been keeping busy.  I usually go to bed around 12 or so and get up at about 630.  God has graciously bestowed on us poor humans the gift of coffee.  I haven’t drank it everyday, but when I do you can bet there’s a difference! The day is divided up by breaks, one from 10-1030 and an afternoon siesta from 1-3.  I don’t have a problem with the heat here.  It feels a lot like home, good ol’ Texas...
    I still don’t really have a set schedule yet which is both freeing and frustrating.  I wake up and depending on my mood I either head over to the hospital to shadow or go to work in the shop with Abraham.  I managed to actually build something from scratch the other day for the first time.  It sure is nice to be familiar with most of the tools in the shop.  I’ve included a picture of my first wooden pallet! Hurray! Haha it was pretty simple to build, but it was nice to “prove myself” to the other shop workers that I am indeed competent and not just around to be a burden. 
    I’ve finally confirmed who it is that I’ll technically be shadowing.  Dr. Starke is the head of surgery here and Dr. Kramer is the head of pediatrics.  Both are wonderful people I’ve spent a lot of time with already.  Here is different than the shop.  I often feel like I’m just in the way, not because of anything the doctors have said.  I hope to find someway that I can serve them more instead of just stand around and watch all day.  Michael continues to be a great help as he often tells me much more about a body part or disease then I ever thought I’d hear about.  It’s quite nice to understanding what’s happening, especially when the doctors are too busy or are concentrating on the task at hand.  I think I have over 12 hours of material to write on already!  Unfortunately typing it wears me out... By the time I’m done in the evenings I just want to sleep or take a walk. Hence the terrible habit of not updating the blog... 
    Yesterday (6/4), we had a barbeque as kind of a send off to a couple people.  The Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Zoolkoski, and his family are headed out Wednesday along with Glory.  I’ll miss the Zoolkoski family even though I didn’t get too much of chance to really hang out with them.  There youngest son, Joel, is the most inquisitive, innocent, and funny kid I’ve met.  Still wish I had more time to spend with him. Glory graduated high school last spring and took a year off between college.  Sounds like a great idea honestly.  She is a fellow Texan and future pre-med student with plans to start at A&M next year.  She’s been in Galmi almost 6 months now!  Kinda crazy to think I’ll only be here a little less than 2.  Another family, the Schellhase’s, are also on their way out.  It was a good, fun evening with plenty of food and some great fellowship.  I continue to be impressed and touched by the incredible, godly community here.  It’s sad to see such great people leave.  I know they’re great because of the many stories I heard that night about how much they’ll be missed. 
    Today is Sunday, and it is the day that Michael and I will be preaching in church.  Yes, when you arrive at Galmi you get a warm greeting and “Oh! By the way could you throw together a sermon for Sunday? Yea, that would great!”  Haha, it’s been such a blessing though.  I spent most of Saturday morning and all of today Sunday reading and preparing for this evening.  I hope to post Michael and I’s sermon here soon so you all can judge for yourselves if we did alright. 
    God is doing some good things in my heart here.  Things I intend on sharing with you soon, but now I must go and finish preparing for this evening. 
    Please keep Michael and I in your prayers as you read this. 
Blessings,
Josh