My Day
Friday morning found me scurrying around the house, clinic, and office, cleaning as fast as I could go. It is amazing how dirty a place can get in such a little while…it is hot season now, so every afternoon is windy, and the leaves are falling from the trees, which means leaves all over the clinic and house! Not to mention the dust…plus the ants are on the move, so there is a constant battle to keep them out of the kitchen. Then there were the clinic walls to scrub, because my monkey loves to run over the walls to the dirt outside, and then come running in again, putting his dirty little feet all over my white walls. (On my projects list, I have listed bricks across the top of the clinic walls to prevent his antics, but that is for sometime in the future when we actually have time! ) The kitchen needed to be thoroughly cleaned to discourage the ants, the floors swept and scrubbed, and food prepared for Sabbath. There is always far more work to be done than the little girls and I can do by ourselves, but do it we must.
When that work was almost finished…if it is possible to consider oneself finished…Grandma came for her treatment. Kerry was not here because she had gone to check on another patient that needs to come and stay here for us to treat. I still had to make medicine for the patients, so I had 10 year old Hannah sit with Grandma while she was in her first fever bath of the day. Kerry and I have been teaching her how to help us with the patients since we so desperately need more hands.
While Hannah was watching Grandma, Destiny and I made food for Sabbath, and cough lozenges, since coughs and colds are still going around. Instead of making special things for Sabbath like we used to, we now make the quickest, easiest things so as not to waste any time.
Soon, Kerry was back, and we were going busily about our duties when Jason came roaring down the sidewalk on his motorbike with the grandpa that stutters on the back. He had been bitten by a snake. Kerry had never treated snake bite before, so I gave her instructions, and then went back to our never ending work. (It is not clear in my mind if that happened on Thursday or Friday…)
Right after Grandma finished her second fever bath of the day, the Aunty with the bruises all over came for her treatment. This was only her second day to be treated, so Jason sat down and talked with her for a while to find out how she was feeling. She reported that after just one therapy bath, the bruises on her legs were almost gone, and her painful ankle was remarkably better! (I was amazed!)
After getting Aunty comfortably situated for her treatments, the Christian guy and his little daughter came walking down the sidewalk. It was time for her treatment. The poor little girl has sores all over her body, so she comes every day to be treated. She is a cute little girl, and we enjoy taking care of her. Her daddy knows what to do now, so we just have to make sure that he has all the stuff to do most of her care himself.
About that time, a lady came with a strange growth on her foot. Jason brought her into my office, and after examining the foot, we all agreed that we could possibly just cut the growth off. So, I laid out all our instruments, gave the lidocaine shots, and then went to work carving out that growth. The lady was so happy to be rid of it! We carefully explained to her how to take care of it to keep it from getting infected. I sure hope it turns out OK. I never would have dreamed 9 years ago that I would be doing things like that!
Actually, it would have been not quite such a relaxing day, except that it was Friday, and I don’t teach school on Fridays! Usually, I try to teach around all those activities. I REALLY like Fridays!
The grandpa that was dying did finally die this week. It was a blessing, I believe, because he had no quality of life. I am just so thankful that he was not in so much pain, and that he had a chance to hear the Bible before he died.
Now that we have a baby chainsaw, we have been cutting firewood for the clinic fires every chance we get. It is so nice to be able to just zip through those logs instead of laboriously sawing like we did before. We have big piles of firewood at the end of our sidewalk right now. I think that it is a beautiful mess, but the villagers love it! They don’t even notice that it is a mess. They just know that the firewood represents hot water for all the people who need it. When we get time, we are going to build a carport to house all our firewood so that it won’t get all wet during rainy season.
Jason and Shoshana are building a sauna in their spare time. (Spare time is like a joke around here) They have the floor and most of the walls done now. Jason is afraid that in time, my two tubs won’t be enough for all the people who come, so his little sauna can also be used to treat patients.
I got to thinking the other day that people in America don’t realize what a blessing they have! I am amazed at how much pain you can relieve just by using hot water in a bathtub! (And a bit of ice water now and then) All you do is add whatever is needed to that hot water, and it brings an amazing amount of relief to all kinds of problems! I think that I have been the worst skeptic…I treat the people, and then I am shocked when they get better. I know that I shouldn’t be shocked…God’s ways are the best ways after all…but I am still shocked at how well it works!
Every day, in my free time, I sit down and study more so that I can do a better job with my patients. So does Kerry. Then we share with each other what we learned. There is so much to learn that we both wish we could just stop and study a lot more. But that is not possible, so we just try to squeeze in as much study time as we can get. Some days we get a lot, some days we get almost none, but our goal is to learn a bit more each day so that we can do more perfect work.
I firmly believe that God will be sending us more help soon. I am praying that it will be someone who can do massage! That is the one job that I cannot do since my elbow is still so sore.
When I look at what God is doing here, I am so humbled and amazed. We are told that our clinic has the reputation of getting people better. But, the only way that can happen is by the grace of God. We don’t really know that much about what we are doing, and our only help is to pray and ask God what to do. He gives us ideas of things that might help, but in the end, it is clear to me that God is the one actually doing the work, not us.
I never dreamed even a year ago that we could actually have our lifestyle center up and running, that I would have a nurse to help me, and patients that are getting well. God can do amazing things when we let Him.