Home Stretch!

I bet if I looked back over all of the blogs I have written, the majority have started with an apology for not writing for frequently. So, I cant decide whether or not keep the tradition and go ahead and write the apology, or just assume that everyone knows already and skip it.
Anyway, it is December!! Can you all believe it? I can’t. As the weather is getting cooler in America and the snow is starting to fall, rainy season here in Impfondo is coming to an end and the days are getting hotter once again. Majorly hot and that just makes me really sleepy. Or maybe it’s the African Sleeping Sickness kicking in because some tsi-tsi flies bit me the other day and they are the ones responsible for spreading the disease. I am just kidding. I don’t have that.
The past few weeks have been busy despite not working a regular schedule at the hospital. I have continued to spend some time with Sarah in the community, while also working on some projects at the hospital. I spent a lot of time organizing a cart in the emergency room to receive urgent cases more efficiently. A recurring problem here has been maintaining progress we have made. We seem to be good at making changes initially, but our follow through leaves something to be desired. So, I am trying to set the nursing staff up for success (old Starbucks term) before I go, and then if everything I put in place isn’t maintained, I won’t have to watch it fail. How is that for a positive outlook? Ha. Change is hard.
The highlight of the week was this morning because Joan and I lead the morning devotional. It was our last day in Impfondo together because Joan was leaving this afternoon to go on a 12 day trip down the river and will be going home to Georgia soon after and it was our last chance to do something for the staff together. We both wanted to do something to let the staff know how great we think they are (even if they don’t maintain processes and procedures we put in place sometimes) so we decided to lead the morning devotional and bring snacks and make a slideshow for them. Not to make a wide cultural generalization, but they typically love having their pictures taken. For the past 2 weeks we have been taking pictures like crazy trying to make sure we had everyone accounted for so the slideshow would be complete. Then yesterday we spent the day baking cinnamon rolls and banana muffins and filtering water and shopping for bananas and peanuts. Anyway, we had been advertising that we were gonna do something special on Friday, and everyone was really excited. They were like, “Are we gonna play soccer?” “Are we gonna dance?” And then we were kinda worried that we had talked it up too much. I mean, I guess we could have had a 30 minute dance party at 7:00 in the morning, but we decided to stick with our original idea. It was really great though because it gave Joan and I the opportunity to say a BIG ‘thank you’ for all of their patience and their commitment to the work here and they seemed to appreciate it. It would not be possible to do this work without the staff we have and I feel so incredibly thankful for them. I will try to post the slideshow we made when I get home because there are some great pictures of the staff and I think it gives a good overview of the personnel required to keep the hospital running.
I currently have 3 full days left in Impfondo before flying out on Tuesday to go to the capital. Thus, I have a lot of packing and last minute things to do as I prepare to leave. After Joan left for the river trip this after noon (side note: that was a sad parting because we have definitely been through a lot together these past few months), I got started on some packing. I began by taking down the bulletin board I had made to hold all of the letters I have received since coming. I reread them all as I got ready to pack them away. It was really cool to be reminded of scriptures and encouragement that people have sent me. I want to say a big thankyou for that too, because I counted 55 letters. Those combined with various messages and emails have been a continual encouragement to me. I know that you all have held me up in prayer faithfully since I left home in February, and I believe without a doubt that the Lord has used you all to give me strength during my commitment here. I am so thankful for the body of Christ and the way that the Lord binds us together. I would also like to give a quick shout out to Megan Miano, who won the prize for most hand written notes given!! Gosh, I am just thankful for so many things I feel like I could go on and on. I look forward to being home soon and having some time to process these past few months. The Lord has taught me so much during this experience and I think he will continue to do so once I am home and looking retrospectively at the time that has passed.
Looking forward to being home soon and eating some White Chocolate Peppermint yogurt at Orange Leaf!!

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