I love the peace that comes with quiet humid jungle nights. My sense of urgency, the need to do is gone. To sit, to hear, to wonder is my only need. I went on line to check my e-mail and go on face book. I feel as if I had turned on a harsh fluorescent light against the purity of sweet soft morning light. I don’t miss it. I don’t want it. I dread going back to it. Life is so far from simple and easy here, we ran out of tuberculosis and HIV medications, patients are dying and the need for staffing here is incredible. But somehow in the midst of the overwhelming needs and hardships that have become a daily reality here, there is sweet simplicity.

Heaven and Hell, life and death are in a constant juxtaposition before me, and strangely I feel not sorrow, rather I feel alive. Life is being lived amongst the harsh reality of Africa. Children come in starving, unable to walk or even sit up, without the energy to even cry. In the OR a baby turns pink with his first breath of life, his father shakes my hand when I tell him he has a son. Today a baby died, 3 months old, a little girl, chubby with springy black curls. She died while I was giving her compressions, feeling with hopes for a pulse, listing for a beating heart. She died, I knew we where going to lose her.

In the next room a nine year old boy, “Jordan” who had been in coma for three days came back. Mamma, again his first words. He opened his eyes, he is back. Life and death before me, the only way to describe how I feel, is alive. I love this hospital, these people, and this work. I love it, I feel as if I am thriving, breathing in and out with purpose and passion. The work here is so far beyond me; the needs have me scrambling for time, ability, love and joy that I don’t have. I find myself waking each morning with the need to beg for His joy, strength and love to pour through me. He answers prayer, and although its not effortless, I find love and ability to pour through me in measures far beyond what could ever be found in me alone. To Him be the glory.

The days meld into a wisp of time and I can hardly keep track of the days that have passed. Like most of the Africa I have experienced the Congo is a horribly beautiful drama of heaven and hell playing out before me. Sweet singing wakes me with the early rising sun, and I go to sleep with a heavy depth that comes from watching little lives wither with disease and poverty. I have been loving every second of it though. I love the challenge of geri rigging medicine, I love learning, I love the peace of secluded jungle nights. I love the fireflies that dance across the grass at night. I love this little band of people serving the Lord with simplicity and a joy that comes from fulfilling your calling.

At the hospital I am working in the pediatrics ward and in the emergency room/ intensive care unit. Pediatrics is fun because there are beds full of sweet little ones and the ER/ICU is great because it is fast paced, a little chaotic and very challenging. In the ER we see all sorts of cases, lot’s and lot’s of malaria and all sorts of little traumas, broken arms, children hit by cars, meningitis, mumps, and typhoid. The hospital is primitive; we tie our IV bags to ropes strung across the room, paper charting of course a limited pharmacy and only enough oxygen to support two patients. We do have little wood incubators for our premature babies, a fairly comprehensive laboratory, x-ray and ultrasound.