Expect Nothing In Return

Every time I get frustrated at a person, I tell myself "No one owes you anything. You pour yourself out and give yourself, and expect nothing in return. If you get any perks (like friendship) out of it, that's a bonus." I don't know how healthy that mindset is, but I usually hold to it. If people are unresponsive or rude or hard to deal with, I just remember that I'm doing my part, and continue to do so, regardless of how they act about it.

I'm not so sure that it's healthy though. Because I think of people this way, I think of them as fickle, and don't tend to trust people all that far. Maybe that's normal and healthy, but maybe not.

Crappy Authority

I've become pretty critical of authority. It comes from being raised with the knowledge that I need to always obey leadership, and also having been raised with good leadership. But now I've seen and been around enough to know that not all leadership is great. There is authority out there that does not know how to do things correctly, and doesn't always care to know.

When I begin to decide what ministries to work with as a medical missionary, I need to be careful. I want to be as useful as possible to help as many as possible.

Why I Will Become A Doctor

In church today, I realized a few things. One, that I can hardly talk to God without countless memories from a month in Uganda bubbling up in my mind, and two, that those have helped me decide why exactly I want to be a doctor.

I saw a lot while I was in Uganda. I saw enough that I hardly knew how to process it, and because we had discussions at team meetings most nights, I didn't care to write out how I felt, 'cause it had already been talked out.

But one definite thing came out of it. I saw a lot of bad healthcare. I saw so, SO many people put through SO much pain, and needlessly. Whether babies or young adults, countless people suffer every day over there, and not just from the average perils of a third world country, but from the medicine provided to treat the problems therein.

So during worship today, I couldn't get images out of my mind. From the doctor digging into a child's pelvic region with a syringe in an effort to find the femoral artery to obtain a blood sample (when they could have used the cannula, the IV thing, to get the blood) to the man whose head laceration had gone septic, and looked like hamburger meat, and yet the nursing student used nonsterile techniques in the most painful way possible to stitch up his head while he moaned in pain. The images make me cringe and shudder. I can't stand it.

And that's the reason I want to be a doctor. I had reasons before. I want to be as useful as possible. I want to bring as much practical help to people as I can while also bringing the message of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But I learned a new reason, the primary one: I want to stop needless suffering.

Images pop up all the time, and I can't get the things to stop playing in my head. I'd write more of them out here, but honestly, they're difficult to relive. A month in African hospitals will make that happen, I suppose.

Anyway, that was the main purpose of the trip, to find out why I want to be a doctor. If I become a doctor, I can fight for those people who wait at the mercy of untrained people who have been dulled to the pains of others. I can fight for them, and for their children, and for their parents and grandparents.

And that is also what will make me competitive in the field. I don't care about it for my sake. There are too many of them hurting for me to feel at ease where I'm at.

Just Push Through?

Being on a mission trip for four weeks rather than two may be tricky. I normally push myself the whole time so I can be as effective as possible, but am I gonna hit a wall soon? We've only done one day of ministry and one day of leisure (though rafting the Nile isn't the most leisurely activity), but I've ended every day completely exhausted. I suppose that constantly drinking water and hanging out with God are the keys to making this work, but I haven't even begun working in the hospitals yet! I've been battling a cold the whole time, which is usual when I travel, but I don't think I can afford to be sick for too much of the trip. I was sick for the second half of my trip to the Philippines last year, and I just pushed through, but I dunno whether my body can take all of it.

Lookin' At Pov'tree

I've been in Uganda since Wednesday now, though this is the first day that I haven't felt horribly jet-lagged. With ministry, at least the kind we're doing, each day drives you to your pillow (and to lean against the window in the bus to nap on the way back). Every day is exhaustion.

But it's also good. I'm seeing how these other students process the tough issues here. I never talked things out, at least not much, when I went on mission trips to Kenya. And when you're faced with poverty like this, you tend to either have to ignore it or try to find some way to come to terms with it. It's difficult, but I just stick to some mottos, one of which is "Do what you can, while you can." I'd tell more, but my eyes are trying to shut, and I kinda like the idea.

G'night and such.

Quiet Time On The Plane

May 22, 2012

Uganda trip

For some reason or other, I have felt off about this trip. The primary reason is, of course, the fear of performing medical practices in hospitals when I have yet to have received any training in such areas. Yet I could swear that that isn’t the only reason. But now,  with only five hours left until our plane arrives in Entebbe, Uganda, I have finally gathered that feeling, that drive, that something that pushes me onward. It goes beyond my issues with my dad being unable to see missions work as good use of my time (if I don’t make money, it isn’t worth doing, though he won’t say it in so many words and would likely deny it if put to the question).

I love the challenge of having to rely on sheer force of will and my outgoing personality. To throw myself into the work that others avoid, to leap into it with a willingness that I have only managed to muster by learning about the servanthood that defines leadership, and the examples (primarily that of my youth pastor) of such. To be asked to perform a task, even something that is entirely out of your comfort zone, and to leap into it immediately to the farthest extent of your abilities, rather than to hesitate and process the idea or wonder if there could possibly be another person or another way to accomplish the task.

And the chance to do something that’s purely good. I mean, what is more inherently good, religion at its purest, than going to visit a need and work to fulfill it (the book of James talks about that). When at school or work or play, or whatever endeavors I undertake, all is open to criticism. Not so with missions work. This, this is a faultless pursuit. It is the essence of selflessness, and because of the ministry involved, it is also the most trying. No more are you able to compartmentalize things, separate your public life and your private life, your work from your leisure. Every moment is a ministry opportunity, a test to make sure that you and Jesus are on good terms, and that you are sensitive to His Spirit. And if you are at first unprepared, distant with God, you are thrown into a learning curve, and must either live miserably in your emotions, spirit, and mind, or embrace the Christian faith and set about showing that faith through works. Even if that faith is shaken at first, works have a way of strengthening, like tying a stick to a plant to help it grow straight, despite the fact that its growth comes from the inside.

And then there are the bonuses. Exposed as your skillsets and lack thereof become, you begin to catch sight of precisely what it means to be depraved, and at the same time, the overpowering grace of our Lord who constantly offers to work within you to raise you to embrace the state we are meant to remain in, that of being coheirs with Christ. And when we can catch that, when we can recognize what He desires to do in us, and when we can, through His grace, manage to surrender the fears and the worries that so plague us, we enter into something new entirely.

Because God doesn’t need a perfect Christian. He desires a willing vessel, which is a much more difficult state to reach. Instead of being busy and trying and striving and working hard, it takes a balance of surrender that is surrounded by uncomfortable uncertainty that the world around us cannot accept. It takes clinging to the hope He promises us and a decided “no” to the hope we can perceive from what we see around us.

Abraham, the father of the Christian and Jewish faiths, was the first to find this careful balance. He began as most of us tend to, hearing God’s promise to make him the father of many nations, and believing, but then being persuaded by his wife and friends that such an idea was ridiculous. Because it was, with him being so old and yet having no son to be his heir.

In his doubt, he agreed with his wife who recommended that he have a child with his servant Hagar. Abraham wasn’t punished for this. Because of his actions done in disbelief (though not in disobedience), his servant Hagar and her/Abraham’s son were sent away, taking her from the provision of his household. In the big picture, Islam was created through Abraham’s son, Ishmael. Thus we have the Muslim and Christian faiths in conflict with one another today. When you have a difficult time believing God’s words and promises to you, and you act upon that unbelief, it may not seem to hurt anyone as far as you can see, but rest assured, acting in unbelief will have consequences, even if you don’t know/see it.

God later fulfilled His promise to Abraham and he bore his son Isaac, because His promise was not dependent upon Abraham’s actions; Christ is faithful regardless of whether we are. However, after God did this, he tested Abraham’s obedience.

In commanding Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice, God was asking him to be willing to trust the Lord even when it would ruin everything the God had promised to do. (It should be noted that God didn’t tell Abraham to sacrifice his son. God told Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice.)
Then Abraham did as God commanded and was about to slay his own son when God stopped Him. And his reward for being obedient to God’s will was that God not only reiterated His earlier promises of many nations coming from Abraham, but He also added that through him, all nations on earth would be blessed. This, as some New Testament passages point out, would be through the birth of Jesus.

Because of Abraham’s obedience, God allowed him to have one of his descendents be the Son of God. These rewards are real.

Attacks

Turns out that spiritual warfare is still a thing. And you're in it whether you decide to take notice or not. And it becomes much more noticeable when a bunch of lil' things happen that are detrimental to one traveling to a foreign third world country for a month. One such thing is your dad, who by this time has found a respect for you because you managed to show him respect through your obedience to God, declaring you to be ungrateful because you can't manage to mow his lawn while you've got another parent contending for that same chore at the same time.

So yeah, my dad was giving me issues, and frankly, it frustrates me because unlike any of my siblings (excluding Priscilla, my younger sister), I don't spend all my time drinking, getting high, and doing nothing with my life. Earlier in the week, my dad and I (and my brother invited himself to join us) spent half an hour arguing about my future plans to attend grad school before medical school. He called a few hours later to apologize though.

I can understand that he's frustrated, but I'm not wasting my life. I'm doing things, though I'm sure that I will never manage to do enough to equal his life of work ethic. Nor do I wish to, except in the mission field, which he doesn't have as much respect for, because it isn't a proper job. No job is a proper job unless you make money. And if you don't have a job, you aren't a fully-functioning adult.

It's just frustrating... And then (skip over this if gross things are gross, 'cause I don't even like attempting to spell the word), I had diarrhea tonight. I never get diarrhea. But man, I got up from reading and was doubled over from the pain of everything deciding to take the least convenient path through my body. While sitting in there, unable to read from the pain of it, I clued in to the fact that this was one of those spiritual attacks, that satan isn't very happy about my going to Uganda, despite how awful of a Christian I've been in preparations.

So if you happen to be reading this, pray for me.