19 December 2008

ooh geez

I haven't quite put it together, but today has been a doozy. Jennifer asked me to do a Christmas devotional at the Health Center CME meeting this morning...I'm not very good at these things. I used part of Luke 2 from the Message, and then part of Revelations 7, and tried to encourage the staff that at one point in history, seeing was believing, and God has promised that day will come again...He's sending his Son again, even when on a daily basis it doesn't appear to be the case. I tried to open with some discussion but the question took a nose dive as everyone stared at me or at their feet...'okay, so that's not gonna work' I thought to myself, so I just read the two scriptures and tried to explain the few thoughts above...maybe it was 5 minutes...and of course today was the biggest turnout ever because everyone was expecting a christmas present...sorry! The meeting went on to expose the fact that the health center has not had water for a week, there are no gloves to be had in all of Uganda, there are no ARV's for AIDS patients, the guys that try to keep the place clean haven't been paid in 6 months, staff continue to sell hospital meds and supplies in their own drug shops in town...all in all, this is more than the usual frustrations I think, but really, not much new, but for some reason today it has hit me with particular force. Then there are the two 18 year olds on the ward trying to take care of starving motherless siblings/nephews, one of which is HIV positive, neither of which have much of anything to their names...

Lord, please come quickly and give us the grace to live faithfully until You do!

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