Working weekend

Sunday/Monday - Oct 20, 08
It is 1:20 a.m. and for some unknown reason, I can’t sleep. Considering the weekend I’ve had, I don’t know why I didn’t drop off the minute my head hit the pillow instead of 3 hours later, and counting. Was it the coke I had tonight? But I often have that for supper. I don’t think it’s because of the medical team that came tonight, though I’m very happy to have them here, and the next few days are going to be interesting. I’m not specifically worried about anything.... I guess everyone has these nights once in awhile. Thankfully they don’t come around very often for me.
So back to you... I haven’t been very steady on my blogs here lately but to tell you the truth, I’ve been busy; with a lot of things, if you want to know. This week it was preparation for the team that was coming.
Awhile back when we had the break-in at the clinic, they put re-bars through the concrete wall to hold the bars at the window. Since then they have been sticking out on the inside. Seeing as this week I’m expecting to have around 15 people in a room about 12X10, working all day, I thought that might cause some hazards with re-bars everywhere, so on Thursday and Friday some men here went down, and sawed them to about 3 inches, cut holes into the concrete big enough to hammer the re-bars in and then re-cemented everything. Now that’s not very nice to look at, so we decided to give everything a coat of paint – so off to the depot we go to see what colors are available. We ended up with white and a purple, which later we couldn’t figure out what colors we had mixed to come up with that. However the doors and rebars, which were a green before needed oil paint and we ended up with blue – not exactly a modern choice, but.... hey, we’re not necessarily very modern here in our trends. So Sat morning Bobi and I headed down to the clinic with 6 other boys and started working. It took ALL day! And we almost finished. Too bad we couldn’t start earlier in the week. Now we had to return Sunday afternoon to put everything back in place!!! And the hour or two I anticipated turned into 4. Not the way I wanted to spend a Sunday, especially considering the day before was also so busy. But what has to be done, has to be done! Not all the paint was dry yet, so Monday morning means going early to put back the rest and make sure the place gets cleaned better.
Oh yes, and sat was laundry day for me too, including sheets in case they were needed and cleaning my own house (finally got a mop to clean) so it was 10 p.m. by the time I could relax.

Having said all this about my weekend I need to share the best part yet. This morning, we (the missionaries, as we’re called here) were practicing a song to sing in church (we had promised them last week) when we were told the leaders weren’t going to be there, so me and the others were to lead the service. Hmmm... Of course all kinds of excuses come up at the moment. I can’t do that; not today, I don’t feel spiritual enough; somebody else can preach; I don’t have anything to say. Finally I’m like, what are we here for anyway? If we’re missionaries, we should be able to lead a meeting where routine is totally excepted! Anyway we don’t have to preach, we can do other things. So we sang the song “Take my life”. Bobi shared a little, then I shared about the song, challenging people to get back to the time where they were consecrated and committed to God, if they weren’t there now. After the service, P. Joel brought an eight month pregnant 17 yr old girl up to me, she wanted me to pray for her to become a Christian. I was quite amazed!! The first time I “led” a church service, and a girl became a Christian. Her name is Erline Delicate, if you want to pray for her. She lives here in ‘Sou Boy’. Pregnant by a boy who just wanted to show the family he could get her pregnant, then abandoned her, she’s got a poor, hard life ahead of her. She seemed very sweet and sincere.
So we have a team of 11 here now, Sunday to Friday. Mon – Wed are clinic days, then they have one day off here. 2 are doctors, who have been an immense support to me, since I got to know them on their last visit in March, 2 are PAs (Physicians Assistants), one nurse and many willing hands. We’ve handed out 100 tickets for each day, so we’ll see how many patients come. For the Haitian people it’s medical care; for me it’s a time to learn.
Earlier this week, we received 3 new members to our team here, Kristy, Bethany, and Lydia. They’ll be helping out at the school, giving special attention to the ‘learning to read’ program. They’ll be here 2 months.
OK, it’s past two a.m. so I’m going to try sleeping again.
God bless!