August 15th - Church at Last

I had requested to not be at the clinic for the 6:30am shift because I desperately needed to be in church to hear God's Word. Since we had to leave at 4am on August 1st (a Sunday), it has been 3 weeks since I've been in church. I know that I've been working where I've been needed...but this was the last chance I'd have at making a Sunday service at Emmanuel since we'd be heading out in just 6 days.

I felt so rejuvenated and refreshed after going to church. A large number of people came from the Valley of the Angels - where David & Lydia first began ministering 23 years ago. It was powerful to hear their pastor preach about the story of Jonah going into Nineva to tell the people to repent and how they listened! David closed up with how Jesus is knocking at our doors (hearts) to ask us to dine with him. Do what he asks, no matter how difficult or lengthy the task. I truly needed to hear this - especially with all of the blogs that you've been reading so far. As I've mentioned before, David has a special way of giving all of his messages that really reaches the heart.

After church, I rushed to the volunteer dorm to change out of my church clothes and then headed to the clinic, but promised Andrés I would treat him to lunch when I was done at the clinic at 12:30pm. I met him out front at the store/restaurant, however he was already seated and had already eaten a hamburger. By the time I got there, they had run out of hot food...so I just sat and chatted with Rachel, Therese, Thomas (her boyfriend) and Andrés for a while before we headed back.

I made myself some lunch and then headed over to the little girls kitchen to visit with Doris. We played soccer for about an hour - it was my first time ever playing soccer in my life. Doris said I should be on her team and I joked that she would have the losing team then (since the only thing I knew about soccer is that you want to kick the ball in between the goal posts). It was fun and I learned a lot.

The volunteers got together to have a Bible Study around 5:30pm. We shared readings from the Bible and just caught up on stories that had happened to us both physically & spiritually throughout the week. It was definitely refreshing to be able to communicate on this level with them as I was preparing to spend another night at the clinic.

It's been almost a week since I've spent a night at the clinic (with Leigh & Owen taking most of the night shifts over the past 5-6 days), but only Kevin was there...so it was a little more relaxed environment. All of his chicken pox are finally gone - the only ones that remain are the ones he has picked at over & over until they've bled. He does have a small infection around one pox on his leg due to scratching it so much, but we're hoping that he can go home tomorrow.