Tripping....but not falling

So this past week has been a whirlwind of trips! I went to the mainland on a factory trip Wednesday and Thursday, then went to Hong Kong on Friday on my day off (and met up with a friend from UOP- see picture on left)...then Saturday I went across the border to ZhuHai for some shopping and hanging out with friends....then did another rural trip Sunday-Tuesday. I don't recommend traveling like this. I've had enough squatty potties and hard mattresses for a while. BUT I feel that the Lord has really blessed all of the trips I went on, and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to go on each trip.

This is a picture of the "pharmacy" at our clinic....Yes, it's a table covered in bags of medicine. Though it looks chaotic, we did have it somewhat organized. I filled the meds and told Jack (the guy on my left) how the patient was to take it...then he translated into Chinese for the patient. The lady in white actually was there to translate from mandarin into the local dialect. I am so thankful to be heading back to the US where I can speak directly to the patient...in English.




This picture is of me and Benjamin (one of the Residents) on the merry-go-round that was outside of our hotel. It was basically the same as Disneyland.








Dear Esther Joy, this picture is for you, since you never see cows and have no idea what they look like.
This is a picture of David and his cow. He was so excited to take a picture with it. I forgot that in Macau there is really no room for farms, so native Macau people probably never see cows. It was just very entertaining for me coming from good ol' Gasport, NY.



I'm heading back for the States on Saturday....I can't believe the time has gone by so fast. I'm so thankful for this amazing opportunity to do a rotation overseas. I definitely have more stories than I wrote about in this blog...actually I wasn't that great at blogging (sorry if any of you have been checking a lot).

the river of life

So an amazing friend that God has blessed me with this year sent me off to Macau with the sweetest parting gift ever- 30 envelopes filled with various devotions or words of encouragement. This is part of one I read yesterday:

This story is about a little river.
"The Little river said "I can become a big river." It worked hard, but there was a big rock. The river said "I'm going to get around thsi rock." The little river pushed and pushed, and since it had a lot of strength, it got itself around the rock.

Soon the river faced a big wall, and the river kept pushing this wall. Eventually, the river made a canyon and carved a way through. The growing river said, "I can do it. I can push it. I am not going to let down for anything."

Then there was an enormous forest. The river said "I'll go ahead anyway and just force these trees down." And the river did.

The river, now powerful, stood on the edge of an enormous desert with the sun beating down. The river said, "I'm going to go through this desert." But the hot sand soon began to soak up the whole river. The river said "Oh, no. I'm goin gto do it. I'm going to get myself through this desert." But the river soon had drained into the sand until it was only a small mud pool.

Then the river heart a voice from above: "Just surrender. Let me lift you up. Let me take over."

The river said, "Here I am."

The sun then lifted up the river and made the river into a huge cloud. He carried the river right over the desert and let the cloud rain down and make the fields far away fruitful and rich.

There is a moment in our life when we stand before the desert and want to do it ourselves. But there is the voice that comes, "Let go. Surrender. I will make you fruitful. Yes, trust me. Give yourself to me."

What counts in your life and mine is not success but fruits. The fruits of your life are born often in your pain and in your vulnerability and in your losses. The fruits of your life come only after the plow has carved through your land. God wants you to be fruitful."
- Moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry by Henri Nouwen

Projects....projects....projects.

The clinic has been rather slow lately, so I have been finding ways to entertain myself. One project assigned to me was to determine what medications should be put in safety cap vials. My first thought was "easy...all of them." But it's actually more complicated than that. Here everything takes FOREVER to get implemented. So rather than overwhelming the system, they take baby steps.

2nd project: Drug information for all the formulary drugs. This is more of a project than I realized at first, but I'm plugging along on it. It's basically taking the formulary that a previous student compiled that listed all the medications we carry in our pharmacy (which isn't all that much) and adding to it the indications/contraindications/pregnancy category/dosing information/any other relevant information. The doctors here don't really have good references for drug information, and their old medication guide is from 2004. Time for some updates right?

Tonight I'm going to see the world's largest card house at the Venetian. The guy broke the record just this week in completing his replica of the Venetian with cards. I'll try not to sneeze.

Things God's been teaching me:
1- You can be happy wherever God places you as long as you have a good attitude about it
2- Ministry can't be done unless you first spend time alone with God every day...it's ESSENTIAL...then you need community, then ministry happens
3- It's easy to put selfish expectations on others....to expect them to treat you in the way you "expect" to be treated- when in fact, they might not see things the way you do. Or maybe it's not their culture or the way they do things. When we feel like others are not treating us the way we "should" be treated, we should first evaluate where our expectations come from.