Ale La (Go There)

I feel so proud of myself that I still remember how to spell continuum. Yes. Really. Have I mentioned that I like things to flow smoothly? Or that I like closure? I think I have. Well, it's true, and if I had my way life would make sense like a movie with a really bomb soundtrack. You would be able to predict the next general plot point, the cinematography would be epic, and everyone would be happy at the end. But, as much as we try Life continues to refuse our efforts to make it conform to the standards of others. So, even though I would have loved for my time in Brazil to have strung along the same continuum as that of Peru, it did not. It continued to amaze and confuse me. It broke my heart again. It showed me that when people are placed in your heart, they are there for good.  I haven't been to Brazil for four years, and I was so happy for a chance to get back there and reconnect with some people who are really important to me. I met the kids in Piratininga over 7 y...

Love is the currency that keeps it's value, despite distance, time zones or experiences. I am so rich and blessed in love. Lately I have been thinking a lot about family. Some of the members of my "real" blood family came to visit me for this last MMI project in Cuzco, I have been saying goodbye to all the people who have become my family here in Peru, and I have been hearing about how one of our patients is  struggling through prognosis of terminal cancer without a family, so "family" has been on the brain. My "real" family arrived on the Saturday before the Cuzco project; my Mom, Dad, brother Michael and cousin Laura. I met them at the airport. We cried a little and hugged a lot. They got to meet all my MMIers and spend a week with us in the clinic. Having my blood family and my MMI family together for one week was both really wonderful and really strange. I kept wishing for more time, for more meals, for a larger table so that we all could si...

"How do we understand God in this?" This was a question that really struck home with me over the past two weeks, as I was translating for our MMI trip to Puno/Juliaca. How do we understand God in this, when a woman grabs your hand with tears in her eyes and says "Help me," when you have to tell a woman with no insurance that she may have cancer of the spleen, when a mother of two deaf/mute girls tells you that she will sell her organs so that they can have cochlear implants? How do we understand God in this? When a patient comes in with a fungal growth the size of a cabbage on his foot. He says he has been cleaning it with urine and that it's "getting better." The team manages to convince him that he needs to be hospitalized, it is a potential emergency, and that he could contract sepsis. But, when he finally agrees to go to the hospital they tell him that all his paperwork has been transferred to Arequipa, where the health care workers are on ...

Sometimes I forget that there is more than one way of being self centered. There is the obvious way, the way that most people think of, the person who does whatever they want to do regardless of the consequences to others. Then there is the sneaky way, the way of perfectionism, the person who is so obsessed with getting things right that they forget to actually look at the person in front of them. I slip into this second type of self centeredness all the time. And it's oh so easy , because you think that you are simply trying to be a better person, while in reality you are caught up in a fog bank of thoughts like, "How am I coming across today? What do people really think of me?" "Oh my gosh, My Spanish = THE WORST THING EVER!" "Did anybody see that? I did finally did it right!" The only problem with all of those thoughts is that they are completely about me, instead of about the person in front of me. What does the person in front of m...

I work with an as a volunteer for an organization in Peru called MMI (Medical Ministries International). MMI is a non-denominational Christian organization that is based out of Toronto , Canada and Texas . MMI employees and volunteers travel together to rural areas in various countries around the world and give healthcare, counseling, education, and prayer to people who are in need of basic medical attention. Today was the first day of our clinic in Ica , it was my first clinic since I was in Cuszo last November, and it was my first day in the clinic since I came here last Thursday to work for six months. Can we all take a moment to appreciate that I really wanted things to go super smoothly today? If I had been given my choice I would have been working either in triage or in the Integrated Health area, or any place where I could have felt truly bad ass and confident. Ahhhh. Life. When do we ever get what we want? Where did I end up working today? You ask. Today, I...

"The best laid plans go oft astray." Was that Shakespeare who said that? (He said so many things, it must have been!) All I know, is that every time I go to Mexico , there is always something that goes differently than we had planned. Sometimes things work out, and other times everything slips away into the wind and chaos reigns. Let me back up a little bit. I have a friend who started an organization called One Generation Alliance. OGA is a non-profit organization that exists to support orphanages and orphanage directors in Tijuana . Dave Edmondson (and his lovely wife Shannon and their five children) have invested time, money, and countless thoughts and prayers into exploring the best way to help orphanages succeed in the gigantic task of clothing, sheltering, feeding and providing an emotionally safe place for children in distress. For more information you can visit their website HERE . About two years ago I visited an orphanage called the Hacienda for the fir...