Packing

• Sorting and packing medical supplies. It's a hobby I'm cultivating. But the good news is I'm almost done....

Urgent Care

I usually try not to post about my experiences out at Urgent Care but I laughed several times tonight and I want to share the humor. One of my first patients was 7 years old and came in with his mother who evidantly didn't speak english. So here is how triage went-
Me: What brings you in tonight?
Pt's mother: Eh?
Me: It says here he has a loose tooth. What can I do for you?
Pt's mother: Eh?
Me to the patient: Did you get hit in the face?
Patient: Nope
Me: Lets take a look....oh! This is just a baby tooth.
Patient: Yep
Me: So..... what you really needed was the tooth fairy.
Patient and his mother: Eh?
Me: Never mind. The doctor will be in to see you shortly.

Or this patient-
Me: So you stubbed you toe yesterday?
Patient: Yeah. And my 5 mg of methadone every 8 hours isn't cutting the pain.
Me: Eh?

Or this last one-
Me: So what brings you in today?
Patient: I'm sick.
Me: Really? Duh. Can you give me a little more information?
Patient: I'm coughing and stuff.
Me: Come on. Any fever or chills?
Patient: No
Me: Sore throat?
Patient: No
Me: Nausea or vomiting or diarrhea?
Patient: No
Me: So... tell me more about the cough.
Patient: For like 3 days.
Me: You have had the cough about 3 day?
Patient: Yeah.
Me: Do you bring anything up when you cough?
Patient: I guess, sometimes.
Me: Um.... So what you really need is just to go to a pharmacy and get an over the counter cough medicine, stop smoking, and not have wasted our time here. The doctor will be in to see you shortly.
Patient: Can you tell him that I had to miss work to come here so I need a work excuse. Tomorrow and the next day too?
Me: There it is. The real reason that you are here. O.K.

13 days!

We bought our tickets!!! April 5th.  Thanks everyone for your prayers. God really answered. We were asking to know for sure that today was the day to make the step. We have had a little resistance from ITeams last week as we are not quite at 100% but really felt like the time is now for several reasons. But we prayed first thing this morning that God would make it perfectly clear and by mid morning, unprovoked, ITeams emailed us the go ahead. Thank you Jesus! So now we have 13 days to do our last things and be ready to go. Whoa!!!

15 days...

Time to update... so much seems to be going on right now. I think we are purchasing our tickets monday. But we need your prayers. Please pray with us as it seems like there is some spiritual warfare going on.  We are nearly done fundraising but have to be at 100% and the team is ready for us to join them the first full week in April.  May would be our next chance if we don't make it then.  One more prayer request- Little Luka is still in the hospital in Kenya. He is doing better but he and his family still need our prayers.

Amazing

I’m really sorry to admit this but somehow I missed the miracle. I think I was so focused on learning all I could on L&D that I missed just how amazing new life really is. But last night I got to slow down just a little and enjoy. It really is a wonderful thing when the parents are together and stable, having thought through parenthood, are equipped and supported, ready, the right age and prepared. When labor goes smoothly and in the quiet of the morning a new life joins two loving parents. A life that was created from nothing and has had the breath of God breathed into it. Just figuratively, literally it was a tiny dark blue ambubag that put the first breaths of life into him but it was God that formed these amazing little lungs that in a matter of minutes can switch from being filled with fluid to processing air in a life sustaining way. A tiny, blue, lifeless, slippery form becomes a pink breathing baby in a matter of minutes. Miraculous. You can actually see the circulation from an umbilical cord shut down as his tiny heart takes over the work that it will do for the next 70+ years. It makes the first 7,200 beats successfully in the first hour of life outside the womb. He responds to touch, and sound. He is ready to eat and he can communicate that need clearly. He is already easily comforted by his mother more than anyone else. Astonishing. Wow God. Thanks for letting me see birth this way instead of just as a medical challenge with problems to prevent. I’m sorry that I missed the miracle earlier and I ask that you help me never miss it again!

Update

Time for an update- sorry, I've been busy with non-fundraising stuff... it was kind of nice and kind of necessary to take a small mental break from it all. Beckie and I had a friend staying with us for a few days.  She is preparing to go to the Middle East, also with International Teams. We did some backpacking and cooking and recharged together a little. Beckie's sister was also here so all the more reason to take a little break. But break the break is over. Next week we get back to it!

I have some prayer requests I would like to share:

1. The youngest child of the team that we are about to be joining is very sick and needed to be transported out of Uganda, is currently on dialysis and in an ICU in Kenya.  Please pray for him and his family!

2. Beckie and I are praying hard now about leaving April 5th. This is the third time we have had to push back our date and we really want to be there!  Please join us in praying that our fundraising would be completed and that we could get our tickets and go!

3. More than wanting to go though, we want to want what God wants. (Weird sentence, let me rephrase- We desire to long after the heart of God) Please pray that I'm not striving so hard to be in Africa that I'm missing what God wants of me right now.

History

Just a little history about Uganda for those who are interested:

Uganda gained its independence from Britain in 1962. An attempt to delicately balance the political power between tribes ended in 1967 when a northerner (Obote) took complete control, favoring his own tribe. Anarchy increased until Idi Amin seized power in 1971. The crazed dictatorship of Amin brutalized the country as the army pillaged and murdered with impunity. Christianity suffered restrictions and intense persecution. Amin’s invasion of northern Tanzania in 1978 provoked a vigorous response and in 1979 Tanzanian and Ugandan exiled troops deposed the military regime, restoring Obote to power. Continued inter-tribal warfare and government incompetence racked the country. Museveni gained power in 1986 and has gradually brought a measure of stability. Uganda now has a paternalistic partial democracy, but with a large army wielding considerable influence. Ever since Museveni took over there has been armed resistance against the government in northern parts of Uganda.

- from Operation World

learning

(*Warning- this post contains a lot of “nurse speak”. Sorry to my non-medical readers. )


Whoa! Just left L&D and my brain is about to explode... In the last 12 hours I’ve been involved in 2 forceps deliveries, 3 normal vaginal deliveries, 1 bleeding VBAC 8/7, an urgent c-section with an 1,000 EBL, an IUFD at 25 weeks, a 36 week baby who was 4 lbs., several triaged and sent home and 3 patients who’s primary language was not English. I feel marginally more prepared, but it is a small margin. Once again a huge thanks to all of the nurses (and tech!) who are such good teachers!! 


On a slightly different note the fundraising has reached 90%.  Thank you so much to all of you who are praying for Beckie and I. We are looking very seriously at purchasing tickets that will put us in Uganda on April 6th.....

Prayer request

I'm going to share with you something I've been praying about and ask you to join me in prayer about it. Beckie and I could use one more church supporting us. Remembrance, our home church,  is doing a wonderful job but we would love to share our passion for what is going on in Uganda with one other church. Would you be willing to pray with us that God would open this door?

Self-control

I just read a statistic that said that we fork out more than 30% of our income on stuff we don't need. Advertisers get us to do it by pushing mental buttons. Here are a few that jumped out at me:
• Status- we buy things that are visible to others in order to impress them.
• Beautify our homes- we get a feeling of identity and worth from our home's appearance but rarely is the "stuff" necessary.
• Entertainment- We buy (or rent) to reduce boredom and generate excitement.
• Gifts- frequently when we buy a gift for others we also purchase something for ourselves (and occasionally spend more on ourselves than the one receiving the gift).
• Quality of life- the product says it will improve our knowledge/ health/ satisfaction/ security/ success.
There are several more of these "justifiers" that advertisers work hard to use to push buttons in our psyche. But really these reasons are nonsense. I’m just challenging all of us to not listen to the lies and question our motives.

 But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. - 1 Timothy 6:6-7

So close but so far away

Money. My current least favorite thing. I feel like I spend way too much of my time looking at numbers. I'm not really a numbers person. But here they are anyway:
As of the end of this week I'm at 80% of my monthly goal. That is roughly another $400/ month I need pledged. (and Beckie is nearly the same.) It seems so far off. I don't want to be discouraged but..... we are looking at March 22nd. Only 24 days from today. And we need to have enough time left to buy our tickets and our visas. Sometimes I feel like we can do it and other times I'm not so sure. I really appreciate the MANY that joined this month. It is when I look at you I'm encouraged. God is fully able to do it if this if it is His will. If not March 22nd then probably April 10th. But I don't even want to think about that.
Alright, enough disjointed thoughts strung together. Have a day of rest tomorrow!

I just spent the past few hours on labor and delivery trying to learn skills that hopefull I'll never need.

• I learned some new things like how to repair a 2nd degree tear and what to look for to assess a placenta.
• I was reminded of some old things like what are bad decels and normal variations in fetal heart tones.
• Most importantly I learned that I have so much left to learn.
• Even more importantly than that I was reminded that I do nothing on my own. God is sending me to this and he is equiping me for this!

A huge thanks to the weekend nights team for being such willing teachers!!

Desire of my heart

In the states our prayers and our attitudes say “Lord, please remove this struggle from me!” I’m learning that mature Christians say “Lord, please give me the grace and strength to bear up under this struggle!” This reminds me of the verse Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you desires of your heart. As a young Christian I struggled when I read this verse- I’m delighting in the Lord, why am I not getting the desires of my heart? Now I’m beginning to see that delighting myself in my Lord means to let my heart beat with His. To learn to know His heart is to be delighted by it and have the same desires as His! Then the wants of my heart are His! The desire of my heart was to go to serve in Africa. This is a good prayer right? But God said, Jennifer- I want you to want me first, not want to serve me first! Now my prayer is not to be sent to Africa but to be within God’s will for me. And because the desire of my heart is to be within the will of God He has completely given me this longing! (Which amazingly enough includes Africa!  But what if it didn't?  What if our well laid plans and months of fundraising came to nothing? Would I still be OK? I would grieve but then I would be fine. Because I'm learning to want what my Father in Heaven wants).

These are just my mental wanderings today. But the reason that I’m sharing them with you is that I know God is saying the same to you as He has said to me “I want you to desire me! Not just the things of me, though they may be good. My child, delight yourself in me! Long for me and I will answer you!”

Thanks for checking in. So... where are we at? I feel like I'm stuck in a rut. I'm writing the same thing over and over. Fundraising, packing, getting rid of stuff. Oh, and for a little variety this week taxes. I wish I had something new to write... but for now still just fundraising, fundraising and a little more fundraising.

Walking in the woods

So I was trying to think about this as a life application lesson but I got nothing. It is really just for fun.

I've been walking trying to walk the past few days to think and pray and I take Clementine with me. However, our last two walks have been... well... Usually she is very good. Comes right away when I call, well behaved on and off the leash. We usually walk in the woods and we have scared up deer and rabbits and squirrels without any issues. But she has shown her true colors with birds. Yesterday it was ducks on the Grand River. Took one look and dove in after them. The good news is, as I was figuring out how to get my 150lbs out on the ice to pull her back in she ended up far enough downstream to where she could get herself out. No harm done except that my car windows have a thick layer of frost inside because we sat in the car while she warmed up and dried off. Today, I intentionally chose a park with no ducks and no water. But she found some turkeys. Lots of turkeys. Big ones. She even managed to get one in her mouth before she figured out that she had no idea what to do with it. The turkey easily won that fight and will clearly live to make some other dog's life miserable. And we added lots of little bits of feathers to the mess in my car. Now it smells like wet dog AND wet bird.

Postponing

  So... how to write this? A decision has been reached- we are not going to make it by March 13th. So I'm sitting here eating comfort food and trying to console myself. I know in my head that this is the way it is supposed to be. We are within God's will. But I am still struggling with my own impatience and eagerness to go. At this point we are only postponing our leaving by 9 days, our new goal is March 22nd. Not that different at all. We will still be pushing hard, only giving ourselves 10 more days to purchase tickets and then get our visas. Please pray for us in these remaining days! God is so good but this season of fundraising is so hard and I am so ready for it to be over.

I'm so excited as I write tonight!! I'm within a few hundred dollars of monthly commitment and soon will be able to purchase my ticket!! You guys have been awesome with your giving. I recognize that it takes sacrifice on your parts. Thank you so much!

One other thing- I just want to point out a new feature that I've added to the blog. You will see near the bottom of this page on the right side a list of books. These are books that have touched me, made me think in new ways or showed me a new facet of our amazing God. I recommend any one of them (and think every Christian should read some of them!)