crazy week

Ok, this week has been rather insane at work and so I would like to tell the world. It's been an exciting week at work. Now since I work at a children's clinic excitement would be a bad thing. A very, very bad thing

Monday: The morning was packed, every available appointment was taken. Dr. Chris however, never turns down a sick child. So at the beginning of our lunch we saw a three week old baby that was sick. Brett, the nurse's assistent, went to check the baby in. He noticed that the baby had turned grey and was barely moving. He got the nurse. That baby's oxygen was at 64! (For those of you who don't know, brian damage can happen when it get's as low as 90.) So they put the baby on oxygen, discovered it had RSV (same aweful thing I had last couple of weeks, very dangerous in kids that young) and called an ambulance to take the baby boy to the Children's Hospital in Denver. As soon as they left we had a head injury on an eleven year old boy come in. He had somehow managed to smack himself in the head with a shovel. How he accomplished this I can only guess. The mom said his eye dialated but it fortunately wasn't as seirous as she thought. Then we got a call that the ambulance with that baby had turned around before it got to Denver, which means that something went majorly wrong. We were all worried and praying because we thought that the baby was going to die.

Tuesday: Also very full. We found out that the baby lived and that after bringing it back to our hospital to stableize it they finally took it to the hospital in Denver. It's now in ICU (intensive care unit) on a ventelator (breathing machine) they don't yet know when that baby will be out. If you think of it pray for that family, for that little baby to get all the way better, they are new parents and probably quite freaked out, and ventelators are very expensive. About lunch today we had another injury walk in. A seven year old boy slipped on the ice, cracked his nose and punctured his lip. Yikes, there was a good bit of blood so we moved things around to get him in right away.

Wednesday: We saw 29 people in five hours. I was at work from 8h - 19h. It was crazyness and insanity times five. RSV, flu, and a nasty little stomach bug, have hit Summit pretty hard this year. RSV is more contageous than the flu if that gives you any idea. Half the church has had it this month. The first hour we were open we had to see eight people in an hour. (We only have four rooms so four people in an hour is considered busy, but Chris never turns down a sick kid.) The first three kids who came in all tested positve for RSV (extra nasty chest cold and a few other yucky symtoms), one we sent to the hospital and the other two got brething treatments and oxygen. All this respitory stuff is made much worse for the little kids when you throw in the fact that we are at 9,000 feet above sea level and there's less oxygen in the air so more kids require oxygen when they get sick.

Usually I work to the sounds of angry/hurt screams in the background of kids who do NOT want to get shots. Having grown up in a daycare my mom ran I'm pretty good at consentrating with a high noise level. This week the background noise at the clinic has been totally different. It's much quieter. The children don't feel well enough to scream at the sight of the doctor. It's all the most pitiful noises children can make. Weak, half-hearted crying, coughing, wet coughing, dry coughing, very weak coughing, and a lot of bad wheezing. It makes me want to cry.

very happy

I just finished my first art class for this semester! I've wanted to be an artist as long as I can remeber. Art Class has always been my favorite. However, having homeschooled most of my life I haven't had much opportunity to. Very sad. :( But now I'm taking art for a whole semester and each class lasts three hours. I'm so happy I could bounce off the walls! This class is going to be so cool. First upon looking at everyone else's work I have discovered that they are all better than me. I'll be way more challenged in this class than usual. (Usually I'm at the top and my pride gets stroked a lot which causes it to undertake spasmotic growth spurts, not good.) Also, we can work on whatever we want, in whatever media. So I can just do whatever I want and get feedback from a room full of people more talented than me. This is exciting. The teacher will help me get better at whatever I want to get better at. Oh the posibilities, and only one semester!

**floats away on happy cloud

story of grace

Today begins a new chapter in what I hope someday we will all look back on as a story of grace. Today a brother and a sister who left Immanuel Fellowship over a year ago due to a lot relational problems that were piling up came back. It's been quite tense between them and a lot of people. Today they came and he got up and apologized for the way he'd hurt some people and said that they want to be a part again. They've looked but haven't found any other chruch that is like a family. Mike called the man's wife up front as well. He was hugging them and about to pray for the couple but he never got the chance. Erick put his gutar down and stepped off the stage to give them a wlecoming hug. Pat, Todd, and Tammy were right behind him. Then suddenly most of the people in the church (everyone who knew them) went to the front to join in what had spontaneously become a group hug. Lots of crying and welcoming words. We've missed them. God please let this be a story of grace on all our parts. Heal the hurts on both sides. Give us the grace to forgive all and love freely again.

Patty & Justin

Today is the wedding of two of my friends, Patty and Justin. (Hence the title of today's post.) It was a nice little wedding, sort and sweet with a long reception afterwards. The extra cool part was that Patty's older brother Bobby got to preform the ceremony and prononce them man and wife. He was so excited to do it and said all these great big-brotherly things to both of them. Then the parents came up to pray for the new couple. It was sweet.


P.S. It's an odd thing being a single twenty-something. I'm that age where all my friends seem to be getting married. I'm losing count. Not that it really makes me want to rush out and get married any time soon. It's just odd.

oops

I think I screwed up my html with that map. Oh well, maybe it'll get better on it's own. :p

my map

Look what I found on Gordon's blog. It's so cool. Go make your own, it's fun. ;)



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

failed

I’ve been sick this week. I got sent home from work, and I’m still not well enough to go back yet. Whatever I have leaves me wired so that I can’t get to sleep very easily. It’s been a good time to read.

For Christmas I got a book called Safely Home. It’s a fictional book about two roommates who are reunited in China after 20 years. The American has become a successful businessman, the other returned to China and gave up his dreams so that he could serve Jesus there. The book is very well researched and it’s one of those that’s very hard to put down. I’m beginning to think I should have put it on my seven best books list I made a few days ago.

At the same time it’s kind of a painful read for me. It’s already made me cry twice and I‘m little over half-way through. (I can count on one hand the books that have made me cry.) When I was a teen I read the book Jesus Freaks, a collection of true stories of people who’ve died for their faith. It inspired me to want to give everything for Jesus, even to be willing to die. I knew that as a Westerner it was not very likely that I would ever be on the wrong end of a gun with someone commanding me to deny Jesus. I knew it was unlikely that I would ever be beaten or see any of my friends killed for Jesus’ name. Unlikely, but not impossible. Yet even if I never faced such a test I prayed for the love to be able to. After all, Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If that kind of love is impossible for a Westerner who may never face such tests, than God wouldn’t have asked it. He asked it, so there must be a way even in the relative safety of my country. It was one of my most frequent prayers.

If the last couple years have been a test than I’ve failed miserably. I have lost for taking a stand and choosing not to be swayed or turned from where I feel God has called me to be. Have I lost everything? There have been moments of self-pity where I have thought so. In reality, no I have not come near to losing everything. Some relationships have changed or been lost which has hurt. Looking back I have not been the hero I had spent so much time praying I’d be. I have not suffered loss joyful to be worthy of suffering for Jesus. About as far as you could go in the opposite direction actually. I haven’t quit or run away, but that’s God’s doing, not mine. It’s been a very discouraging discovery that I would not have what it takes.

However, the book is also very encouraging. The Chinese man, Li Quan, was the son of an illegal pastor. He too faced a test and failed. His father was imprisoned and killed for his faith, his mother died in an earthquake. He became an atheist. Amazingly he gets the opportunity to go to college in America where his roommate is a Christian. Li Quan is reunited with the Jesus his parents gave all to serve. He goes back to China after college and is imprisoned many times for his faith. Speaking of Quan someone in the book states that, “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward. But properly learned, the lesson forever changes the man.” Though Li Quan’s actions are heroic in my book, he is scared when he’s about to be beaten and he never claims to be a brave man. He is human. Though he still feels the guilt of abandoning his parents as they suffered, he does his best with his second chance. If you asked Quan if he has what it takes to face the persecution he faces, he would proabably say no. He'd say that it's Jesus who keeps him going. Li Quan failed but the world didn't end there and so I’ll be praying that prayer again.....

giving blood

Today I gave blood. It's only the second time I've done it. I like donating blood. It's fun and I get to be someone's hero, what more could a girl ask for on a beautiful Saturday afternoon? :p

It took me less than ten minutes to give a pint of blood. The woman said my bleeding speed was a steady nine on a scale of one to nine. I'm proud of my skills.

......must be why it hurt so much more this time. :(

seven

things to do before I die

1. go to Antarctica
2. live in London
3. learn to speak with a proper British accent
4. successfully smuggle Bibles
5. learn to speak French
6. go on a medical mission trip
7. go to Alaska

things I cannot do

1. be somewhere I don’t feel wanted
2. focus for more than five minutes
3. trust a guy who has a crush on me
4. speak French understandably
5. stay calm when I’m really excited
6. watch people hurt other people
7. drink coffee and like it

things I say most often

1. go away! (while laughing)
2. I don’t know
3. grrrrr
4. boys! arg.....
5. we can take my car
6. brilliant
7. I’m sorry, could you repeat that, I quit paying attention there.....

books I love

1. the Bible
2. Till we Have Faces
3. A Tale of Three Kings
4. Quo Vidas
5. A Chance to Die
6. Red Moon Rising
7. The Vision

movies I could watch over and over

1. Narnia
2. The Runaway Bride
3. Batman Begins
4. Chicken Run
5. Starwars
6. The Neverending Story
7. X-Men

people to do this next

1. Jacque

I can’t think of anyone else who hasn’t already done this.....

New Year

Today I moved into my new room. I'm still at the Simon's house but no longer in the laundry room. Now I have a real bedroom with a lock on the door and windows. I have a bathroom and access to the kitchen. Good way to start the new year.

And what about 2005? It was an incredibly hard year for me. It's easy to look at the negatives but I need to make some space for the good. They say you learn a lot through hard times. What did I learn? Hmmmm.....

• I finished reading through the Bible for the second time. It's amazing how much just reading the Bible helps; even when there are no great flashes of revelaton there's still something there.
• "For He [God] knows our frame, He remembers that we are but dust." - Psalm 103:14. I think I'm am slowly learning this one. God does not expect me to be a super-saint. He knows that I am human, weak, dust, and He is not up there demanding what I am incapeable of giving.
• "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness." - Jeremiah 31:3 I think I understand this verse on a much deeper level as well. God's love is everlasting. A song we used to sing says "Your love is deeper than my view of grace, higher than this worldly place, longer than this road I travel, wider than the gap You've filled." I can never run out of it. Funny, this time last year I was so sure I was on the edge of running out of love and mercy. Betsie ten Boom said, "There is no pit so deep that His love is not deeper still." Jesus stands above all gods in that He alone has the power to come to us and hold us no matter where we are; all other gods are too weak, they require us to come to them.
• "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help in time of need." - Hebrews 4:15-16. One of my friends has reminded me of this a few times. Even when no one else understands Jesus understands. He walks with me and fells my pain every bit as intensly as I do. He holds me and crys with me like no one else ever could.
• "You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?" - Psalm 56:8. It's very hard for me to cry. Somehow I've learned to think it's an aweful, shameful thing. People used to laugh at me a lot when I was little and would cry. Then I learned not to let people see it. This year I've learned that God doesn't scoff at my pain. It's precious to Him. I'm free to cry with God.
• Jesus is the "author and perfecter" of my faith, not me (Hebrews 12:2). It's not my job to force spiritual maturity out of myself. I'm still trying to figure this one out. Where's the ballance between laziness and trying to be the potter? How do I let Jesus be author and still do my part? I am thinking that not as much of it is up to me as I thought.
• I think I've also learned to rely on the friends God has put in my life and admit my own weakness more.

Not that I'm all that great at any of these things. They're just areas I'm begging to see changes in. Hopefully it keeps going.