Unappreciated Blessings

I returned recently from my second medical mission trip to Waslala, Nicaragua. Once again I struggle with the challenge of reentering life here at home. I find it is the plumbing that poses the biggest problem, both in Nicaragua and now at home. During the two weeks away, I had to remind myself not to stick my toothbrush under the water faucet and not to put toilet paper in the toilet. I also feared letting any water into my mouth while taking a shower. I had an easier time remembering not to drink water from the faucet, perhaps because that is a more intentional act.  On both trips, I have found the plumbing issues more of a challenge than navigating a different culture and speaking Spanish instead of English. What creatures of habit we human beings are. Now back at home less than a week, I have struggled to undo the habits I formed in the two weeks away.

Of the many blessings we enjoy, which are unavailable to our Nicaraguan brothers and sisters, the most important may be those our governments provide that I normally take for granted: clean water, sewer service, paved roads and bridges. Water here at home is generally safe to drink from the tap, and the plumbing works most of the time. Most days I never give it a second thought. But in Nicaragua, safe drinking water is an unknown luxury in the rural areas where we worked. My physician husband noted that clean water would solve many more health problems than all the hard work done by our intrepid group of a half-dozen health care providers, who saw almost 1200 patients in our time there.

Indoor plumbing is also a rarity in the areas we visited. Most homes, and even many public facilities such as schools and clinics, have latrines. On one trip, Marlon, our bus driver, stopped at a home beside the highway and asked if his passengers could use their facilities. The family graciously agreed, and we trooped into their backyard to use the latrine. As I waited my turn, I tried to imagine stumbling across the back yard and up the steps regularly. Not an attractive prospect. As the trip resumed, we talked about the wonder of anyone simply opening their toilet facilities to two dozen strangers.

Other blessings I take for granted here at home include paved roads and bridges, which also impact health care. Many patients seen by our medical team walked hours for care. Roads make it possible for buses and trucks to reach more places and for an ambulance to reach a regional hospital more quickly. For a woman in labor, that can mean the difference between life and death in a crisis.

As I listen here at home to the endless arguments about the cost of government, I wish I could transport the combatants to rural Nicaragua to experience life without the government services we take for granted. Perhaps then we might find it easier to cooperate to pay the cost of public services. Clean water, functioning plumbing, roads and bridges are great and unappreciated blessings. We would do well to remember that and to give thanks.

Grace and Peace,

Donna Sue

Regresando--Returning

We will go to Nicaragua again in a few weeks on our second medical mission trip there with a group from our church. Last year was my first visit to that beautiful country and my first medical mission trip. I returned home changed by the experience, as I have been by previous mission trips. I recognized one such change recently when I was forced to start antibiotics for a persistent respiratory infection. I was grateful for the medicine, but felt guilty as I remembered the hundreds of people who came to the doctors in our mission team for medical care and for the medicines our group provided: aspirin, Tylenol, and antibiotics among others. For many, if not most, of the people our doctors treated, such medicines are not readily available.  We live in a culture that is saturated with drugs, good and bad. And while there are many people in this country who lack access to medicine and good medical care, many of us take pain relief and treatment for infections for granted. I find it hard to wrap my mind around what it would be like to live without the basic medical care I take for granted, a situation common to too many of the world’s people. In spite of the challenges in their lives, or perhaps because of them, I learned from the people we encountered on our last trip to Nicaragua more about how to live joyfully in difficult circumstances. I learned years ago that what we have to bring to the people we meet on our mission trips is helpful, but what they have to offer us in return is priceless if we go with open hearts. My prayer is that I will return from the upcoming trip changed once again and for God’s help in sharing what I learn there when I return.

Grace and Peace,

Donna Sue

Bud and Alex

A group from our church spent a Saturday about a month ago on fire recovery efforts with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. We were assigned to help rebuild one of the many homes that were destroyed in the wildfires near Bastrop, Texas last year. While others in the group sanded the sheetrock upstairs to prepare for painting, I listened to Laurel’s story. She is a woman of grace and courage with more grit than I can imagine exhibiting after losing every worldly possession. The day was full of unexpected blessings—the norm for such mission trips in my experience. One was the loan of painting equipment from a group of Mennonites from Pennsylvania, who had travelled to Texas to work. They had worked during the week and shared their equipment that Saturday so we could paint the outside of the house sunshine-yellow, work that was especially important to Laurel.

The most amazing experience of the day for me, however, was getting to know Bud and Alex, who came and spent Saturday afternoon with us to watch the house after Laurel had to leave and to lock up after we were finished. Bud was a long time friend of Laurel’s, and Alex was his friend. Alex joined us in the painting while Bud entertained young Henry, who had accompanied his mom on the mission trip. Bud’s patient interaction with Henry was a gift, but what really impressed me were the cloths he provided when I asked if he knew if Laurel had any paint rags we could use. I told him I did not want to use anything in the house that might be important to her as she had already lost enough. He left for a few minutes and then returned with some black rags, which he had cut from the shirt he was wearing. I regretted my request and told him I had not meant for him to use his shirt. He said he also did not want to use anything of Laurel’s that might be important to her. What an amazing testament to friendship. I wonder how many of us would cut the shirt off our backs to take care of a friend. I was reminded that saints still walk the earth in our time, and we encounter them if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Grace and Peace,

Donna Sue

Light out of Darkness

October 31, 2012

This afternoon, I walked the labyrinth at an Episcopal church near my home. There I left at God’s feet the pain of saying goodbye this morning to a good friend. This past year I have walked more in the shadows of the valley than on the mountaintop, as I have coped with griefs, small and large. I will miss this friend and pastor who has walked beside me during this difficult time. I am grateful for the labyrinth, which provides a thin place close to home, a place where the veil between heaven and earth seems thinner than in other places, though that may because I go to such places intent on opening myself to God’s voice. I went to my favorite thin place a couple of weeks ago for a church conference and sat at the chapel on the hill, which overlooks the Guadalupe River, early on a Saturday morning. I never fail to encounter God in that place. I never know when or how it will happen, but I am always blessed by God’s presence there. This time I walked up the hill to the chapel in complete darkness and sat for some time listening for God. As I sat there, I remembered Mother Teresa’s description of prayer as listening. When she was asked how God responded, she said “he listens.” As the time approached for me to walk back down the hill and get ready for the day, I watched the light seep so slowly into the darkness that engulfed me that at first I thought my eyes were deceiving me. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, the light arrived, and the darkness began to fade. The promise I brought home with me is that light will come into the darkness in which I have been wandering. It will come slowly and imperceptibly at first, but it will come for I have God’s promise that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot put it out.

Grace and Peace,

Donna Sue

All Creatures Great and Small

I pray each day for God to show me how I might be of service. Last night's opportunity came out of nowhere, as such opportunities seem to do. I was driving home from the monthly Live Poets Society meeting and was almost to our driveway when the headlights reflected on a small dog standing in the rain in the middle of the road. My first thought was that it was Naiyah, who should have been named Houdini. She regularly escapes from the house across the street. I had managed to lure her into the car on one occasion and return her to her frustrated owners, who had been chasing her for some time without success. I stopped and opened my door and called the dog, which promptly jumped into the car. I realized immediately that the tiny Yorkie was too small to be Naiyah, but remembered the other  neighbors across the street had a Yorkie. I pulled into the garage, turned off the engine, shut the garage door and got out of the car. My prisoner escaped and dashed under my husband's car. I finally lured her inside and called the neighbors, while my husband tried to capture our wet visitor to dry her off. No answer, and no one home when we walked across the road to try to return her. I suggested  my husband try to reach his colleague through the hospital operator. The operator connected him with our neighbor, who was out of town. The dog's owner immediately contacted the neighbor down the road who was taking care of the little Yorkie in their absence, and that neighbor showed up a few minutes later to pick up our unexpected guest, now drier and no longer shivering with cold and fear. We live in a great neighborhood, with people who know and care for each other.

It rained all night last night, a welcome relief from the drought. I am glad our little visitor was not outside in the rain and glad I had the opportunity to rescue one of God's tiny creatures. I've learned there are often opportunities for service if I simply pay attention. I've done angel duty before, but this is the first time it involved a dog. Trying to be of service in God's kingdom is never boring!

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue

Hope for the future

For I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

On this birthday, the first day of a new year in my life, I am awestruck by all the ways God has carried out this promise over the course of my life. That knowledge gives me hope for the future, whatever it holds. The past two years have been a bumpy ride, and I’m grateful for the friends and family who have sustained me as I have grieved losses. I’m especially grateful for the listening and kindness of my pastor, who will soon be moving on as our church calls a new permanent pastor—a new adventure and new possibility for relationship.

 Now in the autumn of my life, always my favorite season as a young child, I am assessing what opportunities the future might hold for serving God in different ways. My most recent project was to put together my first book of poems written out of my experiences on my first medical mission trip and my first trip to Nicaragua. The trip blessed my life in so many ways, many intangible, which I could only begin to express through poetry. God has had a hand in this project. I have offered the book in exchange for a donation to next year’s mission trip back to Nicaragua and have been amazed by the response of those who have read the poems and graciously donated. Who but God knew there was a poet hiding inside all this time. God is good. All the time.

Grace and Peace,

Donna Sue

Remembering

A year ago this week, our interim pastor died unexpectedly following surgery. How strange to realize that a whole year has passed. I miss her bright smile, green eyes, copper hair, and wicked sense of humor. Our church has moved on without her, reluctantly, but of necessity. Now we will face yet more change when her replacement leaves sometime before the end of the year and another permanent pastor arrives. I confess I do not understand much that has happened this past two years since our last permanent pastor left. But one thing I know without a shadow of doubt: God has been with us throughout this time of sadness and change. For that reason, I am confident that God will be with us as we move into the future, whatever that might hold. I read a quote recently that hit home: "You either trust God or you don't." I referenced that wisdom when I preached yesterday on the passage from John's Gospel in which Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life." That bread is sufficient to feed our souls through whatever changes come. I am grateful for the sure and certain knowledge of God's grace in this time of remembered sadness.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue