Oww, my eye!

Hey fellow friends! Just a quick up date from Mexico. We have be traveling around Guatalajara taking in the sites and culture. We have the adventures of rushhour traffic, strolling along cobble stone streets, and taking a taxi around town. We even got to see cow tongue in the market...yum.

It has been wonderful exploring Guatalajara but most of all I've enjoyed being with the Shepard's. They are the kind of people and missionaries I want to be so it's been wonderful to do life with them for this short time!

Renee, April, and I goofing off at the two storie Starbucks in Guatalajara.

The semi small red spot above my eye brow is where the dart poked me.

Not bad I know but I almost poked my eye out!

Thanks for all of you have been praying for me in general and while I'm here. We were playing darts this afternoon and as typical clutzy me I dropped a dart on my face and was close to hitting my eye! YOUR PRAYERS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE, THANKS YOU FOR YOUR PRAYS!

Love you all!

Trip to Guadalajara, Mexico

Hello amigos! I'm writing from Guadalajara, Mexico. I'm going to be here until Saturday visiting a missionary family from church. They just recently moved here after living in Peru for 13 or so years.

While they were on sabbatical in the States their daughter April was in my Bible study for those 2 years. One of her close friends Renee and I decided that we should go visit them!

Be in prayer for protection and that we may be able to encourage and up lift them in their life and ministry in Guadalajara.

Here is Renee and April drinking Inta Juices...I just love these girls!

Nursing in the dirt for Jesus

God began to show me His heart and the needs of Swazi children as I served in Swaziland in the summer of 2005. One day, we went throughout the rural villages and homesteads inviting all the children we met to come to a Kid’s Club. Expecting about 75 kids at most, we were blown away when 200 kids showed up!

For the next couple of hours we taught a Bible lesson, sang, and danced; but most importantly, we gave love to these kids in desperate need of love. During this time, six boys with injured toes from walking barefoot in the bush were brought to be cared for by nurse Jessie.

As I sat in the dirt with these boys examining their hurt toes, I realized I could not only help care for them physically but I could introduce them to the One who made and knows them intimately, the King of kings. God has given me nursing as a tool to reach those in need and to expand his kingdom!

Nurses in Swaziland

I ran across this article about how the nurses are doing in Swaziland called "SWAZILAND: Enough is enough, say nurses" . They have a pretty interesting nursing culture.

The nurses in the hospitals and clinics are taking care of a dying population many times with not enough room, medication, or staffing. Sometimes they are even with out the basics like running water and electricity.

Yet they continue to care for those hurt and sick the best they can. With the limited experiences I've had visiting the clinics and hospitals in Swaziland, I find that they are worn out. Family member are to stay with the patient to help prove meals, assist with basic care, and to be an advocate for the patient.

Isn't this an interesting way to create traction for a hurt leg?

I was able to talk with a nurse in the hospital in Big Bend, Swaziland, once and you could see that she loved nursing and was very medically knowledgeable for the resources and technological equipment they have. But she was tired of being so understaffed and having little to no supplies.

We talked about switching jobs, she would take my job in America and I'd take her job in Swaziland ;)

I find myself blessed and privileged for being able to nurse in America. The hospital I work at is well stocked with medical supplies, the pharmacy is rarely in want, and we are staffed well. Our hospital building, I tease, is like the Hilton Hotel. Beautiful artwork adorns the walls at every bend, the color choices are soothing and fresh, patients have grand one patient rooms with individual bathrooms (could you imagine sharing one toilet with 30 other sick people in Swazi?), and we have security guards who come within a minutes notice.

Sometimes I catch myself as I sit in front of my personal nursing pod with computer and telephone at hand, day dreaming about how many people I could treat in Swaziland with a hospital overflowing with medical supplies, medications, and staffing.
In my minds eyes I have knocked down many of the walls in our wing (keeping all the glorious bathrooms intact ;) making it one big corridor.

I see the lines of people resting in comfortable, clean beds. People that we could treat and care for. I see the nutritionists making sure they are fed properly with our delicious selections of hospital food (although some may think delicious and hospital food should not belong in the same sentence ;).

But alas, this will never be.

I'm excited to be learning to care for people medically in Swaziland! I know that God is preparing me now in known and unknow ways in the hopsital. I will be taking a class sometime this summer for two weeks that will teach me how to nurse in a third world country.

Some consider me crazy to move to Swaziland to nurse. Maybe they're right. All I know is that God has placed on my heart and called me to go help care for His people not only physically but spiritually wherever He leads. It just so happens that He is leading me to Swaziland right now!

This is His promise:

Isaiah 58: 10-12

If you feed those who are hungry and take care of the needs of those who are troubled, then your light will shine in the darkness, and you will be bright like sunshine at noon. The LORD will always lead you. He will satisfy your needs in dry lands and give strength to your bones. You will be like a garden that has much water, like a spring that never runs dry.

Sex, Sushi, and Salvation

Did I catch your eye with the title? ;D

I periodically will walk the shelves of Borders aimlessly wandering with no clear goal in mind. It's a time I can escape and be caught in my own thoughts as I browse books I'll never buy.

At random I blindly pulled the book "Sex, Sushi, and Salvation" out among the masses of books on one of my Borders escapades the other day. The title caught me off guard. As I glanced behind my back to see if anyone was around who could see the title of the book in my hand, I thought to myself, "I'm in the Christian section, ya?"

I read the first couple of pages becoming lost within the book. I was hooked.

The author, Christian George, a young mid 20's something wrote his thoughts on intimacy, community and eternity. He is a vivid writer painting an authentic world of beauty among the grit and grime.

I've been searching for a book that talks of my generation and our desire for anything authentic no matter what the cost, the good mixed in with the bad.

I related when he wrote about how our generation at times wants God but wants nothing of the Church. He talked of the dangers of being, in a sense, a decapatated Body of Christ. He also wrote a great chapter on worship.

There is so much I would love to share from this book, so much that I'm continuing to digest and mull over.

In the chapter entitled "Back to the Future" he is talks about Heaven and how we must look back at what God has done for us as we walk forward with Him. Community with God is what we seek...

"But heaven will be better than that. Instead of having an inner itching for sinful behavior, we'll yearn and burn for Christ. God will suck the poison from His people, and we'll be consumed with a passion for worship. We will applaud God for redeeming us, pulsing and praising His name... Heaven will be a place where Christians adore the Christ who sacrificed Himself to satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts.

For now, we are pilgrims in a land that is not our home. We press on toward our final destination as strangers on this earth. Instead of living for the weekend or partying your life away, give yourself to something great. Abandon the American dream of health and wealth and risk your life for the kingdom of God. Let's pray a little harder and love a little more. There are already too many wasted lives in this world. Nothing is more gratifying than soaking up the Savior and splashing others with His glory. Nothing is so rewarding as sleeping with a clean and forgiven conscience. C.S. Lewis wrote, "We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us." Why settle for less than perfect communication with Christ? Why settle for Hershey's Kisses when the chocolate factory is ours for the eating?" An excerpt from "Sex, Sushi and Salvation".

Check it out!

Pick one up for yourself and continue to explore the vastness of our God!