Wow. I think the days are starting to roll by faster or something. Or maybe it's just that I'm at the end of a week, and the weeks roll by quicker for me. Monday marks the half-way point of my being in Haiti. It will be three weeks that I've been here. After tomorrow's church service, I only have two more to sit through. That makes it sound like I don't enjoy the services. Hmm. . . I do and I don't. Sitting in the hard wooden pew for a couple of hours and listening to a lot of stuff I can't understand is a bit trying at times. On the other hand, just knowing that Christ is being preached and being able to sit and study my Bible for over an hour is nice.
Weekends are nice, since we really don't 'do' anything. Not normal things, anyways. Weekdays (LOL I'm listening to this donkey that's outside and who is braying like Chuck Norris is after him. Quite hilarious, and quite loud) are more structured and orderly as far as what happens, when it happens, etc. Weekends are just kind of free for all days, where breakfast could be served quite late and dinner eaten early. In fact, that's generally what happens.
I spent about 6 hours today at the clinic working on computer maintenance. It's slow going, since I'm working primarily with Windows Vista right now, and I know nothing about that. Each computer is also different as far as what comes already installed on it and what it might need. I figure since I'm here that I might as well do thorough work on all of them, so I'm taking my time. Two laptops are complete after nearly 10 hours of work and two more are about half way. The two I'm working on right now are the desktop and one of the netbooks. I'd like to reinstall Windows XP on the net book, but it doesn't have a recovery partition or a CD as far as I know. Besides the fact that I don't have an external drive to use anyways. I suppose I'll ask Faith about the CD tomorrow and use the CD/DVD drive from the desktop if I need to. The net books are both refurbished, and I'm thinking perhaps they didn't come with CD's. Guess I'll find out tomorrow. :)
Watched the first disc of The Fellowship of the Ring tonight. Good movie. It's been a good solid year since I've seen them, as my brother took them (since he owns them) when he moved out-of-state to go to school. I remember now why I love those movies so much! They are just phenomenal. I played quite a bit of a massively multiplayer online role playing game (mmorpg) Lord of the Rings Online the past 6 months, and it was really super cool to be able to imagine where the hobbits were as they moved through the Shire and to Bree-town. I can remember standing on Weathertop in-game and looking out over the landscape. Imagining Strider and the Hobbits running through that area was easy. Then when Arwen (Glorfindel in the books) takes Frodo from the Wild (which I think is in the Lone-lands or in the Trollshaws. . . ) to Rivendell, and crosses the Brunien River at the Fords of Brunien, I could easily imagine that place. Anyways, having played the game and recently read some of the book, it made the movie definitely come to life for me.
After we got through the second disc, Steve checked the battery power and discovered that is was on 11% or something. We'll watch the second disc tomorrow night probably, since we've finished the Truth Project.
Okay, time to shower and get to bed somewhat early tonight. Oh! I trimmed by beard by a substantial amount tonight. It was about an inch long, and it's now about a ¼ inch. I still need to trim up around the edges, but I'll do that after my shower. Steve was gracious enough to lend me his trimmer. It only had once length setting, or I would have kept my beard a bit longer, but I can't complain. It feels better then the bushiness it was before. I have a cowlick below my jawline on the right side, and sometimes it looks rather annoying. :p
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
07.23.2010 - Friday
Went down to the clinic again this morning before breakfast. I have kind of gotten into a habit of doing so. I enjoy checking my email and facebook and just having some quiet time to start the day. I will say that I probably won't do that tomorrow morning though, as I'm ready for a day of not getting up quite as early.
After breakfast, Faith asked me if I could do maintainance on every computer that the Leach's or the Hospital owns. She basically wants me to do a spreadsheet containing information such as make, model, OS, product number, serial number, and Trend Anti-Virus information of each computer. Then she also wants me to make sure Trend is up to date, the computers are defragged, and that there are not unnecessary things running on it. It's kind of a challenge for me. :) I did two laptops today, recording the initial boot up speed, how many processes were running on start up, and what sort of maintainence I did on them. There are three computers I also will back up to an external drive. I'm keeping a Word document that details everything I am doing to each computer (and an explanation if needed) so that after I am gone, it will be (hopefully) fairly easy to see if I did something that needs reversing. On one laptop, I decreased boot up time from over two minutes to exactly one minute. It's amazing what a little work can do. :-D
That's basically all I did all day. Tomorrow I'll go back and keep working on them. They'll be all super fast and awesome after I get done with them! I hope. . .
We were going to watch The Fellowship of the Ring tonight, but it rained for quite a while today, and the projector takes a lot of power to run. We decided to watch a romantic comedy called Blast From The Past. . . it was...interesting. I fear I'm being corrupted by these movie hungry missionaries. :p I will say that the movie did an excellent job of promoting the old ideas of chivalry, manners, proper behavior, etc. It was quite nice.
I need to borrow Steve's facial hair trimmer at some point, because my beard is growing a bit long. It would be nice to get it trimmed up and looking a bit better.
Read the story Beauty and the Beast tonight out loud to the family. It was from The Book of Virtues. I like story-telling, although I know I need to work a lot on annunciation and slowing stuff down.
I am enduring my second round of poison oak. I seem to attract it. I'm using a topical cream to treat the itchiness and calm it down a bit. It's helping some, although at times it still itches like crazy. Scratching it is bad though, since the oil spreads easily if you break the surface of the rash.
I tried blogging today, but it was giving me fits yet again. The problem I'd been having was that when I copied and pasted from my journal, it would either give me a META problem or the text would be the same color as the background of the blog. The META problem I took care of by copying and pasting to a Google Doc and then copying and pasting it from there to the blog. The background problem I took care of my putting up a new template with a different background color. But now the text color is a problem again. Oh well. I'll work on that more tomorrow while I'm waiting for a laptop to finish running a test or something.
Speaking of tests, I took one of my three American History (pre-1877) CLEP practice exams. I haven't studied much except up to the time of the American Revolution. I got 45/120 right, which equals approximately 51 on the CLEP score, or barely passing. Hopefully with some more studying, I can bring that up a bit.
After breakfast, Faith asked me if I could do maintainance on every computer that the Leach's or the Hospital owns. She basically wants me to do a spreadsheet containing information such as make, model, OS, product number, serial number, and Trend Anti-Virus information of each computer. Then she also wants me to make sure Trend is up to date, the computers are defragged, and that there are not unnecessary things running on it. It's kind of a challenge for me. :) I did two laptops today, recording the initial boot up speed, how many processes were running on start up, and what sort of maintainence I did on them. There are three computers I also will back up to an external drive. I'm keeping a Word document that details everything I am doing to each computer (and an explanation if needed) so that after I am gone, it will be (hopefully) fairly easy to see if I did something that needs reversing. On one laptop, I decreased boot up time from over two minutes to exactly one minute. It's amazing what a little work can do. :-D
That's basically all I did all day. Tomorrow I'll go back and keep working on them. They'll be all super fast and awesome after I get done with them! I hope. . .
We were going to watch The Fellowship of the Ring tonight, but it rained for quite a while today, and the projector takes a lot of power to run. We decided to watch a romantic comedy called Blast From The Past. . . it was...interesting. I fear I'm being corrupted by these movie hungry missionaries. :p I will say that the movie did an excellent job of promoting the old ideas of chivalry, manners, proper behavior, etc. It was quite nice.
I need to borrow Steve's facial hair trimmer at some point, because my beard is growing a bit long. It would be nice to get it trimmed up and looking a bit better.
Read the story Beauty and the Beast tonight out loud to the family. It was from The Book of Virtues. I like story-telling, although I know I need to work a lot on annunciation and slowing stuff down.
I am enduring my second round of poison oak. I seem to attract it. I'm using a topical cream to treat the itchiness and calm it down a bit. It's helping some, although at times it still itches like crazy. Scratching it is bad though, since the oil spreads easily if you break the surface of the rash.
I tried blogging today, but it was giving me fits yet again. The problem I'd been having was that when I copied and pasted from my journal, it would either give me a META problem or the text would be the same color as the background of the blog. The META problem I took care of by copying and pasting to a Google Doc and then copying and pasting it from there to the blog. The background problem I took care of my putting up a new template with a different background color. But now the text color is a problem again. Oh well. I'll work on that more tomorrow while I'm waiting for a laptop to finish running a test or something.
Speaking of tests, I took one of my three American History (pre-1877) CLEP practice exams. I haven't studied much except up to the time of the American Revolution. I got 45/120 right, which equals approximately 51 on the CLEP score, or barely passing. Hopefully with some more studying, I can bring that up a bit.
07.22.2010 - Thursday
I'm pretty tired, so I think this will be short. The Wilson's left today, and the house feels rather empty now. Having half as many people around the dinner table seemed rather weird. I didn't do a whole lot today. No clinic work at all, although I did go down for about 20 minutes to check my facebook and email with my iPod. I did study for the American History (Pre-1877) CLEP test though. That will be my focus now. I'm hoping to take that when I get back from Haiti.
So yeah, other then that, not a lot when on today. Played basketball tonight with Grace and Betsy and some Haitian boys. Grace got proposed to (not an unusual thing around here. Lol). We had baked ravioli (yummmmm) and left over pizza for dinner. We were going to watch a movie tonight, but decided to wait till tomorrow. There was a bit of a lightening storm going on outside, so all of us ended up going and sitting on the porch (on the van bench that serves as the outdoor patio couch, haha) and talking for well over an hour. That was a blast. :)
It's been raining here a LOT for the time of year it is. Steve is loving it. It rained almost all last night and a some tonight too. I think it's done for tonight though.
I didn't sleep very good last night, for some rather annoying reason. I woke up after about 3 hours of sleep and never really got much continuous sleep after that. Every 45 minutes or so I would wake up. Finally just got up around 5:30. Which means I'm tired now. So. . .off to bed I go.
So yeah, other then that, not a lot when on today. Played basketball tonight with Grace and Betsy and some Haitian boys. Grace got proposed to (not an unusual thing around here. Lol). We had baked ravioli (yummmmm) and left over pizza for dinner. We were going to watch a movie tonight, but decided to wait till tomorrow. There was a bit of a lightening storm going on outside, so all of us ended up going and sitting on the porch (on the van bench that serves as the outdoor patio couch, haha) and talking for well over an hour. That was a blast. :)
It's been raining here a LOT for the time of year it is. Steve is loving it. It rained almost all last night and a some tonight too. I think it's done for tonight though.
I didn't sleep very good last night, for some rather annoying reason. I woke up after about 3 hours of sleep and never really got much continuous sleep after that. Every 45 minutes or so I would wake up. Finally just got up around 5:30. Which means I'm tired now. So. . .off to bed I go.
07.21.2010 - Wednesday
Sitting down to write tonight, I find my mind strangely blank on what happened today. :p
I sat in on consultations with Scott again today, for the last time. Tomorrow, the Wilson's leave at 11:00 in the morning. They have a 2:00 flight out of Mole. Nothing too exciting happened today. Fellow came in that had a catheter. . . had a HIV+ patient, but that's not too unusual.
***********
11:45PM
It's raining, lightening, and thundering outside right now. There is a nice, cool breeze flowing through the window. In short, it's awesome. :) The Leach's are expressing amazement at the fact that it has been raining so much, as we are at the very end of the rainy season, and there is generally not this much rain. I love it, except for the mud. :p
After consultations were finished in the afternoon, Grace, Betsy, and I went back up to the house and watched The Epitome of Hyperbole by Brian Regan. Great comedian. :) After we watched the whole thing, we also listened to four audio clips of him that I had on my iPod that weren't on the show we watched. I think most people enjoyed him. :)
We had the Catholic Sisters over for dinner today. Woohoo for pizza and coke!! :-D And then peanut butter and . . . I can't remember the other type of cookie that was made. . . but we had those for dessert. :)
After the sisters left, a few of us started discussing stories that we grew up with, and I found that many stories I remembered came from a book called The Book of Virtues. The Leach's and the Wilson's both seemed to know some of the stories also. We found the book in the Leach's library and I read two stories out of it outloud. By the time I made it through the first one, St. George and the Dragon, the entirety of both families had gathered in the dining room/living room and were listening. After that tale, I also read How Much Land Does a Man Need?, which I was shocked to discover was written by Leo Tolstoy. We will definitely have to read more out of that book before I leave. :-D
Mafia, Hearts, and Dutch Blitz filled out the rest of the night, and now I think it's time for bed. Good night, all! :-D
I sat in on consultations with Scott again today, for the last time. Tomorrow, the Wilson's leave at 11:00 in the morning. They have a 2:00 flight out of Mole. Nothing too exciting happened today. Fellow came in that had a catheter. . . had a HIV+ patient, but that's not too unusual.
***********
11:45PM
It's raining, lightening, and thundering outside right now. There is a nice, cool breeze flowing through the window. In short, it's awesome. :) The Leach's are expressing amazement at the fact that it has been raining so much, as we are at the very end of the rainy season, and there is generally not this much rain. I love it, except for the mud. :p
After consultations were finished in the afternoon, Grace, Betsy, and I went back up to the house and watched The Epitome of Hyperbole by Brian Regan. Great comedian. :) After we watched the whole thing, we also listened to four audio clips of him that I had on my iPod that weren't on the show we watched. I think most people enjoyed him. :)
We had the Catholic Sisters over for dinner today. Woohoo for pizza and coke!! :-D And then peanut butter and . . . I can't remember the other type of cookie that was made. . . but we had those for dessert. :)
After the sisters left, a few of us started discussing stories that we grew up with, and I found that many stories I remembered came from a book called The Book of Virtues. The Leach's and the Wilson's both seemed to know some of the stories also. We found the book in the Leach's library and I read two stories out of it outloud. By the time I made it through the first one, St. George and the Dragon, the entirety of both families had gathered in the dining room/living room and were listening. After that tale, I also read How Much Land Does a Man Need?, which I was shocked to discover was written by Leo Tolstoy. We will definitely have to read more out of that book before I leave. :-D
Mafia, Hearts, and Dutch Blitz filled out the rest of the night, and now I think it's time for bed. Good night, all! :-D
07.20.2010 - Tuesday
Today is my birthday. My golden birthday, in fact. Twenty years of age on the twentieth of the month. And here I am in a foreign country. “Where you lead me, I will follow. No turning back, no turning back.”
Decent day. Went down and emailed/facebooked, attempted to blog in the morning before breakfast. When I got back up to the house, everyone was just sitting down at the table to eat. After prayer, they sang me Happy Birthday and I opened a card from them. Very awesome, signed by each one with a little note. It was pretty cool. :)
Scott and I saw several patients this morning, although nothing too fascinating. When we got down to the clinic in the morning, we moved some beds around in the OR so we could move the sonogram machine down there. Denise was doing her consultations in that room, and today is OB day. After Scott and I finished up with the few non-OB patients, we went in to Denise's room and watched the ultrasounds and dopplers being down. Grace was translating for Denise. They were basically just trying to determine age of the baby, as almost all of the women were there for the first time (for the pregnancy). Some were 37 weeks along, and it was their first visit.
Denise did full ultrasounds on the first four of her patients to get comfortable with the machine, and then decided to do just the consultations and dopplers. If the age was uncertain, she would do ultrasounds. By the time she'd done those first four, however, word had spread that one could see one's baby via the picture machine. Each patient after that requested an ultrasound.
I learned how use the doppler to get the baby's heart rate, and did that on a few patients. One mother was having twins and didn't know it. Till today, that is. Via the ultrasound, Denise found a second baby alive and well. The mother looked pretty happy. :) Also developed a couple more x-ray films, although I did one upside down. Lol
Watched Defiance (with Daniel Craig) tonight. Based on a true story during WWII. It's pretty violent, got a bit of language, and some sexual innuendo, but beyond that, it was a decent movie. I think I liked it, which was surprising. It was a bit thought-provoking.
Okay, it's late. I'm really just journaling so I will stay awake while my iPod charges enough to get through the night. I think it's done enough now. :)
Decent day. Went down and emailed/facebooked, attempted to blog in the morning before breakfast. When I got back up to the house, everyone was just sitting down at the table to eat. After prayer, they sang me Happy Birthday and I opened a card from them. Very awesome, signed by each one with a little note. It was pretty cool. :)
Scott and I saw several patients this morning, although nothing too fascinating. When we got down to the clinic in the morning, we moved some beds around in the OR so we could move the sonogram machine down there. Denise was doing her consultations in that room, and today is OB day. After Scott and I finished up with the few non-OB patients, we went in to Denise's room and watched the ultrasounds and dopplers being down. Grace was translating for Denise. They were basically just trying to determine age of the baby, as almost all of the women were there for the first time (for the pregnancy). Some were 37 weeks along, and it was their first visit.
Denise did full ultrasounds on the first four of her patients to get comfortable with the machine, and then decided to do just the consultations and dopplers. If the age was uncertain, she would do ultrasounds. By the time she'd done those first four, however, word had spread that one could see one's baby via the picture machine. Each patient after that requested an ultrasound.
I learned how use the doppler to get the baby's heart rate, and did that on a few patients. One mother was having twins and didn't know it. Till today, that is. Via the ultrasound, Denise found a second baby alive and well. The mother looked pretty happy. :) Also developed a couple more x-ray films, although I did one upside down. Lol
Watched Defiance (with Daniel Craig) tonight. Based on a true story during WWII. It's pretty violent, got a bit of language, and some sexual innuendo, but beyond that, it was a decent movie. I think I liked it, which was surprising. It was a bit thought-provoking.
Okay, it's late. I'm really just journaling so I will stay awake while my iPod charges enough to get through the night. I think it's done enough now. :)
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
07.19.2010 - Monday
Oh Monday. Why must you come so often! You could at least take a day off once a month and do us all a favor!
All things considered, though, it wasn't that bad of a day. I went down to the clinic before breakfast and did some emailing and attempted to get a blog post up. That didn't work out so well, and I tried a couple more times during the course of the day without luck. Hopefully tomorrow morning I'll be able to get a post up.
First order of business clinic-wise was the new laptop the clinic just got. For some reason, the screen was not turning on upon boot-up. Faith hooked it up to an external CRT monitor and I attempted to look up some answers to the problem. Before I started, however, I tried cold-booting the computer and putting it in sleep mode. Nothing made the screen turn on. I didn't see any easy fixes online, and I was kind of at my wits end. I'd seen some vague references to removing the battery or making sure the RAM was seated well, so I decided I would try both of those on a gamble just to see if they would help. I removed the battery and then removed and replaced both RAM sticks. Upon rebooting the computer, the screen worked fine. YAY! :)
After that, I helped Scott as he took one final look at the young lady with the abscess under her arm. The wound was looking wonderful, and he taped it up one last time before releasing her. Then it was on to general consultations the rest of the day. Nothing too terribly exciting, I'm afraid.
Leftovers for dinner, Joe, Grace, and I washed up the dishes. Went down and emailed for just a bit. The inverter was pretty low on juice, so I didn't stay on long. I basically just downloaded all my mail, then turned off the power. Grace and Betsy came along and asked me to run to the bakery with them so they wouldn't have to walk in the dark. I obliged them and then went back to the clinic and wrote a couple of emails. Before I went back up to the house, I turned the power back on and sent them. Tomorrow, I'll probably go down before breakfast again and write some more emails and try to get that silly blog post up.
I found that quote from C.S. Lewis today. “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” That. . . that is a fascinating quote. Definitely going up on my Facebook status tomorrow. I believe the quote is from Lewis' book, The Weight of Glory.
I also picked Scott's brain for Air Force/medical info. Found out that I would only owe the Air Force 4 years of service, not 4 active and 4 inactive like I previously thought. Also, my residency (which would include my general surgery licsensing), would be included in the 4 years I spend with the Air Force. Upon completion of medical school, I'd automatically be a Captain, and often about half way through the time commitment, you receive a promotion as the Air Force tries to entice you to stay on. Scott finished up as a Major. Sounds pretty good to me! :) I should check on pay rates for those ranks. Also, I need to ask Scott if you are paid full wages while attending medical school (I imagine you are) and what/how internships factor into the whole thing. I think that internships are part of the residency, but I'm not totally sure.
07.18.2010 - Sunday
You'll notice that I changed the background to the blog. I did that because when I copied and pasted journal entries, they were not showing up properly. Changing the background appears to have fixed the problem. :-D
Also, I've posted several times in a row. I'm basically just doing a blog entry per day of my journal. Make sure you read them all! :-D
******** *****
Apparently I was too tired yesterday to journal. We went to the beach and spent several hours there. It was fairly fun, expect for the always annoying sand and icky salty feeling after swimming. Grace, Betsy, and I snorkeled for a while, looking at the coral about 100 yards off the shore. That was fun, although after an hour my ankles started to get rather tired. Steve got us fish from the restaurant on the beach. Two fish, 10 banan-pase, and 8 bucks. It fed all of us there at the beach: Scott, Denise, Chalice, Mikayla, Joseph, Steve, Grace, Betsy, and myself. Faith stayed home to watch the preemies and to cook us dinner – enchiladas!
I don't remember much of what happened after dinner last night, so I'm just guessing I was a little tired.
I finished the Tom Clancy novel that I was reading today. I immediately started in on a book by Gavin Menzies called 1421: The Year China Discovered America. It is, so far, a fascinating book. It details how many of the maps that Europeans had when they started charting the world had items on them that were not yet discovered by them. Gavin is laying out a fairly clear history (as much of one as there can be, since much of Chinese History was destroyed by a Chinese Dynasty) of the late 1300s and the early 1400s, and the empire that Zhu Dhi built for himself. Gavin claims that the Chinese charted the entire world, basically, and first discovered America. It's a mind boggling and thought provoking book that requires one to completely leave behind the commonly accepted history of the West.
Steve got two calls this morning right before church that requested an ambulance pick up for a woman in hard labor. Grace, Denise, and I headed down to the hospital so that we could help/observe with one of the births while another doctor (Felix) did the other. Steve was only able to find one of the women, and brought her to the hospital before heading off to church where the rest of the group already was. After realizing that only one women was going to be at the hospital and making sure Dr. Felix was there to handle it, Grace, Denise, and I went on to church ourselves. Apparently the message this morning was a bit . . . non-cohesive. I wouldn't know, of course. I was reading 2 Chronicles 6, where Solomon prays for God to kind of be centralized in the temple they were building, and that every time someone humbled themselves and prayed at/towards the temple, that God would hear. God answers him in chapter 7 with the familiar, “If my people, called by My name, humble themselves and pray . . . “. I found It interesting that no where did God say they had to pray towards the temple, be at the temple, or really do anything with the temple. That was, of course, on a cursory glance. I shall continue looking at and studying the passage.
Watched the last session of the Truth Project tonight: Community. One thing stuck out to me quite strongly. It was something that C.S. Lewis said. “You have never met a mere mortal. Every human is a soul either horribly monstrous or eternally splendid.” That is not quite the wording. . . I shall have to look that up tomorrow when I have internet. Anyways, the idea that I have never met a mere mortal, that every person I have come in contact with is an eternal soul is just earth-shattering. How often do I treat people like scum? How often do I ignore the needy, the outcast, the ones that don't fit my ideas of acceptable? And yet God says that His heart is with the needy, the poor, the outcast, and is against the proud, the afflictors, etc. How convicting. :p Another thing that was interesting? God is humble. Try that one on for size.
I think I'm falling in love with this Sibelius symphony. Symphony No 2. It's pretty tight. Tomorrow marks 2 weeks that I have been in Haiti. It partially feels like it's been every bit of two weeks if not longer, and partially that it's not been that long at all. I'm wondering how the next four weeks will be. Only one more day of being a teenager too. . .
Also, I've posted several times in a row. I'm basically just doing a blog entry per day of my journal. Make sure you read them all! :-D
******** *****
Apparently I was too tired yesterday to journal. We went to the beach and spent several hours there. It was fairly fun, expect for the always annoying sand and icky salty feeling after swimming. Grace, Betsy, and I snorkeled for a while, looking at the coral about 100 yards off the shore. That was fun, although after an hour my ankles started to get rather tired. Steve got us fish from the restaurant on the beach. Two fish, 10 banan-pase, and 8 bucks. It fed all of us there at the beach: Scott, Denise, Chalice, Mikayla, Joseph, Steve, Grace, Betsy, and myself. Faith stayed home to watch the preemies and to cook us dinner – enchiladas!
I don't remember much of what happened after dinner last night, so I'm just guessing I was a little tired.
I finished the Tom Clancy novel that I was reading today. I immediately started in on a book by Gavin Menzies called 1421: The Year China Discovered America. It is, so far, a fascinating book. It details how many of the maps that Europeans had when they started charting the world had items on them that were not yet discovered by them. Gavin is laying out a fairly clear history (as much of one as there can be, since much of Chinese History was destroyed by a Chinese Dynasty) of the late 1300s and the early 1400s, and the empire that Zhu Dhi built for himself. Gavin claims that the Chinese charted the entire world, basically, and first discovered America. It's a mind boggling and thought provoking book that requires one to completely leave behind the commonly accepted history of the West.
Steve got two calls this morning right before church that requested an ambulance pick up for a woman in hard labor. Grace, Denise, and I headed down to the hospital so that we could help/observe with one of the births while another doctor (Felix) did the other. Steve was only able to find one of the women, and brought her to the hospital before heading off to church where the rest of the group already was. After realizing that only one women was going to be at the hospital and making sure Dr. Felix was there to handle it, Grace, Denise, and I went on to church ourselves. Apparently the message this morning was a bit . . . non-cohesive. I wouldn't know, of course. I was reading 2 Chronicles 6, where Solomon prays for God to kind of be centralized in the temple they were building, and that every time someone humbled themselves and prayed at/towards the temple, that God would hear. God answers him in chapter 7 with the familiar, “If my people, called by My name, humble themselves and pray . . . “. I found It interesting that no where did God say they had to pray towards the temple, be at the temple, or really do anything with the temple. That was, of course, on a cursory glance. I shall continue looking at and studying the passage.
Watched the last session of the Truth Project tonight: Community. One thing stuck out to me quite strongly. It was something that C.S. Lewis said. “You have never met a mere mortal. Every human is a soul either horribly monstrous or eternally splendid.” That is not quite the wording. . . I shall have to look that up tomorrow when I have internet. Anyways, the idea that I have never met a mere mortal, that every person I have come in contact with is an eternal soul is just earth-shattering. How often do I treat people like scum? How often do I ignore the needy, the outcast, the ones that don't fit my ideas of acceptable? And yet God says that His heart is with the needy, the poor, the outcast, and is against the proud, the afflictors, etc. How convicting. :p Another thing that was interesting? God is humble. Try that one on for size.
I think I'm falling in love with this Sibelius symphony. Symphony No 2. It's pretty tight. Tomorrow marks 2 weeks that I have been in Haiti. It partially feels like it's been every bit of two weeks if not longer, and partially that it's not been that long at all. I'm wondering how the next four weeks will be. Only one more day of being a teenager too. . .
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