One of those days...

(This one is a little long but those of you who like to read about daily life in Africa might find it worth your time)

Thursday night I woke up when the electricity cut off. It came back on a few minutes later – well partially. See electricity here runs in phases. I am not an electrician and don’t understand all the details but from what I understand different parts of the house run on different phases. So this means that half the house will have electricity and the other half won’t. And when I say half I don’t mean any kind of orderly split down the middle. It is odd but it means that some of the switches in one room will work and the others won’t – even if they are side by side –and this is throughout the house. On this particular night the phase that stayed off was the one that happened to run my AC and my ceiling fan. Honestly I could live without the AC but the ceiling fan is really hard to do without – partly b/c of the heat and partly to keep the occasional mosquito from doing fly bys with my ears. Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep that night and I was rather cranky in the morning . Upon waking up Friday morning, my roomie, Eva, came in to tell me she was sick and had had a fever in the night. She thought she had malaria. So being the angelic missionary that I am I got irritated and stated sharply that every time she gets sick it isn’t malaria. Yes, I did repent of that incredibly selfish response to someone stating they are ill! Then I did the right thing and went to her room to see what was going on. She was burning up with fever – 103- and very hot to the touch. B/c of other symptoms she described I was pretty sure it wasn’t malaria and actually was afraid it was something much more serious. After talking with Margaret, Michelle and a missionary doctor on the phone, we arranged to get her to a local doctor. My friend, John, had recommended awhile ago a doctor that was trained in the states and that is where we took her. Before we got that far, we had a lot of coordinating to do as Michelle had an appointment for our new colleagues to meet with someone to look at a house, I absolutely had to go to the bank that day to get money for some plane tickets (it isn’t as easy to do either of those things as you might think – get plane tickets or get money from the bank) and Margaret had a meeting (which she was able to reschedule). But the priority was Eva and so after much juggling and phone calling, Margaret and I were on the road with our patient. I have to say the highlight of the day for me was Dr. Kanda. He was kind, patient and thorough in his examination of Eva and if I get sick I will be seeing him. He understands the American mentality of medicine since he was trained in NY and practiced there for awhile and as he is Ghanaian he understands the African mentality of medicine. Here is one example of that difference. In America, generally speaking, even though we know the cure may be uncomfortable, even painful, we will go to the doctor to see what is going on if we are sick enough. So we often take the pain of the cure over the pain and unknown of the disease. In Africa it is generally the opposite. Partly b/c of cost and partly b/c of fear of the cure, an African will take the pain of the disease over the fear of the pain of the cure until the disease gets so bad it may cost them their life. In Eva’s case the doctor was actually afraid she had gotten that far. As best as he could tell without having access to a CT scan, she has typhoid fever and in danger of a perforated (torn) bowel. Something she surely got while in Liberia due to the poor living conditions there and contaminated water and food. B/c of her symptoms he wanted us to get an ultrasound scan of her abdomen. This proved to be an excessively frustrating endeavor. He sent us to the “best” place which was on the other side of town. We get there and are told that the doctor had something come up and he left and wouldn’t be back until 1pm. It is 12 so we wait b/c at least Eva can lie down in the car. At 1:30pm he isn’t back and knowing how things can be he could be gone for another hour or the rest of the day. The thing is that once we get the scan we have to wait for the results and take them back to the MD. No phone calls, etc. here. We call Dr. Kanda and he sends us to a different place closer to his office. After fighting traffic we get to Medlab only to have them tell us in no uncertain terms that they don’t take walk-ins even if they come in as an emergency. I was not pleased and really was on my last nerve by this point (being tired never helps anything!). Back to the doctor’s office we go without the scan. He rechecks Eva and determines that some of the disconcerting symptoms have responded to the meds he gave earlier and says to go home and continue with the meds, monitor her and call him if there are any problems. The long and short of it is that Eva is better this morning (Sat.) but we will keep watching her. This whole process took from 9:30am until 3pm. Margaret was able to stay with Eva for the rest of the afternoon while I ran to work to do some necessary things. I have to say that b/c of the fatigue, concern for Eva, other stresses in life and the frustration with my first “real” experience with healthcare here I was not at all liking living in Africa right now. After being at the office and having dinner with my team I come home to find the internet is not working. After the electricity went off when we turned everything back on the wireless wouldn’t connect to the server. (and yes everything is on a stabilizer and an external power supply). Someone in their desire to fix the internet hit the reset button on the wireless box which unfortunately did what it said – reset everything. Now it won’t work until our IT friend, George, comes and fixes it on Sunday. I am so tired, frustrated and down right mad that I go to bed b/c really no one should have to be around me when I am like that. Why am I writing all this? Well apart from sharing about life here – even though this is not a daily occurrence – I woke up this morning (Sat.) still thinking about it all and experiencing this almost crushing pain on my chest that was homesickness. Some of it I am sure is just wanting to be where things are familiar and seemingly easy – although life and medical care in the states are not a cake walk. (It is so easy to think that life is easy over there when I am struggling here but that isn’t true). The primary thing that is on my mind this morning is a sentence from Ps. 118 that struck me a couple of days ago in a deep and meaningful way. It brought me great joy and comfort and peace that morning. But today and yesterday it seemed, at least in some ways, that life conspired to test my core belief in that very same statement. The statement is in verse 6 and again in 7 – “The Lord is for me…” Although there are many wonderful encouragements in the whole chapter this phrase was what I focused on. So today I am thinking “do I still believe that the Lord is for me in light of the frustration of yesterday and the homesickness of today”? Or did it only mean something on Thursday when I felt God giving me victory over some stresses in my life and mind? B/c yesterday I didn’t feel victorious at all! Do I believe what I read in His word or do I believe what I feel and what circumstances around me suggest – that God has forgotten me in the stress and frustration of this life that I am living? Right now I am listening to a song by Russ Lee called “Live what I believe”. The line “gonna live what I believe” is challenging me to look at what I believe. So right now in the middle of laundry and cleaning and taking care of Eva I am stating to myself and to you that I am gonna live what I believe. And I believe that God’s word is true and that if He says that He is for me, then He is – period – no matter what is going on in life. It doesn’t take away the stress and struggle of living but it starts me on the path to focusing on Him and who He is rather than on me and my circumstances. And may He help me as I crawl down that path b/c I do feel like a baby right now in this journey. But my loving Father is for me and He is helping me. The whole verse says this…The Lord is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” Even now I hear Him saying, “hang in there. I am for you.” Lord I believe, help my unbelief.