A Busy Day for Tim

September 30, 2012 ~ Sunday morning

Woke up this morning at 5:30 a.m. when a phone call came in for Tim.  There had been some sort of accident involving one of the foreign road work supervisors, and they needed Tim at the hospital asap.  Tim hurriedly dressed and went over.  I made my coffee, dressed and went out to the back porch for some unhurried time with God, sorry for Tim that he had to rush off to work so early, but also (a little guiltily) happy for me that I got to have some uninterrupted time on the porch.  Enjoyed reading Psalm 119 and 139, Proverbs 30 and 1 Corinthians 2 and 3.  

After praying and reading, I pulled on my jeans and a sweatshirt and decided to go for a walk.  It was about 7:45 a.m., and I was surprised to find so many people at church already!  Turns out, they have an early service for the students in the area, and I didn't even know it!  Also, three of the 10 a.m. service choirs were already practicing their songs in different buildings nearby – pretty amazing.  On one stretch of road, it felt like singing was coming from every building I passed!

It reminded me of the verse, “I was glad when they said unto me,  Let us go into the house of the Lord.”  It felt like everyone was getting ready for a big celebration of some sort – there was electricity in the air, as folks were preparing to go into His house.

I came back from my walk just in time to meet up with Tim, who was hurrying home after performing a surgery on the injured man.   The team was transferring him to Kigali by helicopter, definitely not something that happens here very often! The patient's company had paid for the Rwandan government chopper to come and airlift him to the big hospital in Kigali.  It was quite a to-do.  Sam and I went back to the hospital with Tim, so we could say goodbye to him before he flew with his patient to Kigali.  Everyone was bustling around, trying to get the patient loaded onto the ambulance to take him to the soccer field, where the helicopter was going to land.   Probably about 800 or more people were lining the soccer field to watch the helicopter.  We drove to the field and watched them load the patient, and saw the chopper up close.  Sam had his picture taken with the pilot, which thrilled him to death.  

I can't post any pictures of the helicopter or military personnel, however, so you'll just have to believe me that it was a cute picture, and that the helicopter was quite large and impressive!  

Just arriving at the helicopter site.

Tim discussing the situation with one of the other doctors. 

About to rush the patient in ambulance to the helicopter.  

Loading up. 

We hugged Tim goodbye, watched the chopper take off, and went back home, hoping and praying the helicopter flight would be okay.  

30 minutes later, Tim was in Kigali with the patient.  They’d given him blood transfusions, were breathing for him, etc... He was alive, but in major shock and not doing well.  Sadly, 20 minutes after the patient arrived at King Faisal hospital, he died.  His pelvis had been completely decimated by the large truck.  It had run over him twice, with both the front and back wheels.  Yuck.

On the drive home, the guy sitting next to Tim got super sick ALL the way home.  Tim said he vomited for hours and hours, even before they entered the curvy and nausea inducing roads of the rainforest.  This is the 3^rd time Tim was sitting next to someone who started throwing up from getting carsick on a trip to Kigali!  Third time!  We’ve only been here for 10 weeks!  Geez Louise!  Thank you, God, for not letting this happen to me (yet).  I just don’t think I could keep from vomiting myself if the person next to me threw up – esp multiple times!

   

Tim came home about 9 p.m.  He arrived just a few minutes after Naomi and Dave Harrison, and Sam, Ruthie and I finished our prayer meeting.  We were supposed to have "English Church" on Sunday night, like we usually do, but the new team didn’t come due to jetlag, and Pete and Judy didn’t come b/c the new team had just arrived and they needed to host them.  Anyway, it was just the 5 of us, so Dave suggested we not watch the sermon video or sing, but instead that we share our prayer concerns and take turns praying for each other.  WHAT AN AMAZING TIME THIS WAS!  I cannot express how much it blessed me.  The kids each asked for prayer for their homesickness.  We all took turns praying for each other, and it was really a special time to share with our new friends, and also with Sam and Ruthie. 

Tuesday, October 2

Monday night, we set up a film projector in the children's post surgery ward, and showed the Pixar movie, "Wall-E".    The idea of watching a film turned out to better than the film itself.  The contrast was all off, so the screen was too white and washed out, besides, no one could understand the plot at all.   Movies aren’t something these folks ever get to see, so just watching figures moving on the bedsheet on the wall is really exciting to them, even if they can’t understand the plot or language.  With Wall-E, it was really funny, b/c they kept asking the nurse in attendance, the only person who knew a little English, if there was a country in the world with people like the Muzungus in the movie.  I was thankful when she told them, “No.  This movie is just pretend.”  I think they were thinking this was a real film about what America was really like! I guess I have too much national pride to want them to think that about my homeland!  

Definitely, “Wall-E” was not the wisest choice of a movie to show these patients.  The plot was totally lost on them!  I decided not to even try to explain in my extremely limited Kinyarwanda that this was a futuristic movie, and that I interpret it as sort of an ominous warning against the dangers of not being good stewards of the planet, but even more about the insidious danger of letting technology make us into passive, lazy and fat consumers, who are merely existing instead of thinking for ourselves and truly living. 

My favorite quote in that movie is when the captain tries to explain to Otto, the Automatic Pilot who has been running the space-ship for hundreds of years, why he wants to risk it all and attempt a return to Earth.  Otto persistently warns the captain that they may die if they return, and exhorts him to resign himself and his passengers to spending the rest of their lives in the comfort and safety of the space-ship, where they know they can survive.  

To this, the captain looks at Otto and replies.....

“BUT I don’t want to just survive, Otto, I want to LIVE!”

During the movie, the kids and moms kept saying, "Yesu, Yesu" to me.  I was so confused, wondering why they were asking me about Jesus during Wall-E!  The nurse told me they did not want to be ungrateful, but they were a bit disappointed because they'd thought the film we were showing was going to be about Jesus.  

I felt like a pretty dumb missionary that we were showing “Wall-E” when they 

wanted to see a movie about Jesus!  What a silly Muzungu I am!

So, tonight we are going to show the Jesus movie.  Everyone in the ward is sooooo excited.  It will be a special night, because our family leaves tomorrow for Kenya to pick up Stephen for his fall break, and this will be a nice way to say goodbye to them for the next 6 days.  They said it was going to be a MOVIE PARTY! HA, I guess it will.  :-)  I can't believe how much I am looking forward to it.