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