To all:
This week ends my time in the Baylor Outpatient Pediatric HIV Clinic, and I'll say that it's been a rollercoaster of a week. I've gotten to see patients independently this week and check out to an attending physician (like an intern would do in the States) so that has been very cool and simultaneously very overwhelming. The Baylor doctors here are really good and I’ve learned a lot from them - but it's also overwhelming how much I don't know and how complicated our patients can get. In order for HIV medications to continue to function our patients have to take >90% of all their doses, for the rest of their lives, so 1/2 of our time everyday is just trying to figure out how to help them do that and there are so many reasons to fail ... you're too young and your mom doesn't give them to you, you’re a teenager and pills infringe on your social agenda, you're a 12 year-old and you don't understand why you have to take something that makes you fell nauseated and dizzy, you're an orphan and no one is responsible for you, you forget ... and on and on. So I'd say my week vacillated patient to patient between me feeling totally inadequate or feeling really empowered that I actually know something after 3 years of medical school ... to sum it up: humbling and exciting.
I see Jesus here - I see HIM in the morning prayer and praise, when patients who know they will be sitting in clinic for the next 8 hours with children (who are probably not their own) stand up and praise Christ with abandon. I slowly see HIM emerging in some of the staff here who are believers. I see HIM at the orphanage when the kids bless their food. I see HIM in the beauty of HIS creation here ... But I think today, I simply long for it to be THE day, when all the tears and all the pain and all the suffering that our fallen state brings into this world, be wiped away. I am glad today that I do not "fight the long defeat", but a battle that has ultimately already been won, and that Christ promises strength for HIS will to be done since I often feel small in comparison to the vastness of what we are called to fight for.
I am also quite sure after being here that I was made to be a Pediatrician and to continue on in this endeavor of justice for the poor - for God's people. I can't say I'm sure where this will take me, but I am quite sure that it will be good and there will be joy in the center of my Father's will as there is to be found nowhere else.
Thank you all so much for continuing to be a part of my adventure. No hippos this coming weekend - but I am having "traditional African food" cooked for me this Sunday by one of the social workers here and caterpillars were mentioned as the main course (no I'm not kidding). One of my objectives while here was to keep worm-like things out of my body … oh well. Also, I start at the local hospital on Monday, so there should be all sorts of new revelations.
Please pray for me to have strength and peace and a loving attitude with the staff next week.
2 Corinthians 4:7-14
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatnessof the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in everyway, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but notforsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body thedying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus'sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Sodeath works in us, but life in you.
