gratefulness

Mozambique Bleak

If you think life has given you a health care lemon, remember Mozambique:

Some 6.4 million people in northern Mozambique, Africa, have little or no access to medical care. They live in a largely-Muslim area of the country and suffer needlessly from malnutrition, HIV/AIDS, and numerous medical conditions made worse by poverty and poor sanitation.

Many haven’t even heard the Gospel.

But now, Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is helping make the critical difference. Like the spreading dawn, hope and healing are coming to these afflicted people. The story of transformation has just begun.

The Program Manager for MAF Mozambique is Warren Veal. He said MAF is teaming up with Dr. Pim de Lijster, a Dutch physician who is known as “Doctor Pim,” and a Brazilian dentist, Dr. Ida de Carvalho, “Doctor Ida,” to form MozMed, a ministry that is bringing life, hope, and relief from suffering.

Veal says, “The three of us work together to provide health care in one of the rural districts in Mozambique.”

He said the health care needs are great. “There [are] about 33,000 people for every doctor in the country. Actually, here in the north, that statistic is a little bit worse because there are even fewer doctors.”

MAF flies these doctors into an area on a Monday, they set up a clinic, and treat those in need. Veal says it’s not just about seeing patients; they’re also training untrained health care workers to care for those in need when the doctors aren’t in town.

MAF overcomes barriers of terrain by flying this dedicated team to eight isolated villages for a recurring schedule of half-day clinics. Each clinic is staffed by a government-sponsored health worker.

I only quote a few of the opening paragraphs of the story: Mozambique desperate for doctors

I am thankful to have all manner of health care options around me.

Survivor: Urie Sharp

I am amazed that the Mennonite Blogosphere doesn’t seem to be reporting this. Well, a correction to that: Google isn’t turning up any blog references to the matter.

State troopers of the Ohio Highway Patrol post at New Philadelphia are investigating the possibility that a car might have caused a single-truck crash that injured a 74-year-old Bolivar area resident Monday night.

Urie J. Sharp of 7995 St. Peters Church Rd. was reported in satisfactory condition in Aultman Hospital at Canton Tuesday night.

Troopers said Sharp was hurt when his northbound 1994 Ford Ranger pickup truck went off the right side of I-77 and hit a guardrail in Goshen Township at about 8:20 p.m. His vehicle then slid into and crossed the median, coming to rest in the southbound lanes of I-77 about a half mile north of the New Philadelphia exit.

Sharp told troopers that he was driving in the left lane to avoid a car that was entering I-77 from the on-ramp when the car came up fast behind his truck and a passenger yelled at him. He said that when he moved into the right lane, the other vehicle “flew past” him.

The driver then got in front of his vehicle and slammed on the brakes. Sharp said that when he also applied his brakes, his truck slid into the guardrail then went into the median.

He described the other vehicle as being a newer model, gray in color. He said the passenger was a white female in her 40s, with blonde hair.

Sharp initially was taken to Union Hospital at Dover and later transferred to Aultman.

Source: Troopers looking for driver of car that motorist says caused crash

We learned about this last night from our daughter LaVay who learned about it on Facebook from Urie’s wife herself. Her report at the time was that Urie has a broken back — a shattered 4th vertebra. I haven’t heard any amendments to that report.

May God bring about full restoration to Urie.

A Christmas 1943 Gift

You may know we have to move.

Thus you may know there’s packing to do.

This evening Ruby came across this treasure from 1943, so I took a photo of me holding it:

a Christmas gift from 1943
a gift my Roth grandparents gave to friends for Christmas 1943

How it came into our possession, I no longer recall. I wonder if one of the recipients’ kin gave it to us.

Well, I also scanned it front and back, and thereon lies the rest of the story. Read it all

What Do You See?

I’m prone to see the ominous dark clouds of the gathering storm. Storms, really — religious, societal, political, military, cultural, financial, spiritual.

I also notice the diminishing space as the dark tunnel’s walls close in at an alarming, hope-crushing rate.

Then yesterday morning I saw the January 6 entry on our day-by-day For the Love of a Friend flip calendar:

A great deal of what we see
still depends on what we’re looking for.

Oh my! 😳

I went back again and again to have another read.

And below the above quote, this from Psalm 39:7….

But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.

How easily I forget! 😥

Last night I read this comment by Crusoe:

I think you can see much farther
through a tear
than you can through a telescope.

(No, not that Crusoe; rather, the one in Flight of the Eagles, the first book of the Seven Sleeper Series by Gilbert L. Morris.)

Oh, and another clarifier: tear above is the kind that comes out of our eyes.

So…I am thankful for all these reminders. And for the hope I have in Jesus Christ.

Unsung Heroine

I don’t know the words to this song; I’ll just make them up as I go along. The tune will be up to someone else.

Yesterday was our niece’s bridal shower.

Though Ruby had no formal tasks or responsibilities for the planning and execution thereof, she was very involved in the preparations.

(I’m glad we didn’t have to experience all the blown gaskets and stripped gears had she not been.)

Decorating the night before. There she was.

Doing the cinnamon rolls. There she was.

Rounding up stuff before the launch. There she was.

Cleaning up afterward. There she was.

This, that, the other, something else — she helped.

Tired? Sure.

Meals to fix otherwise? Sure.

A household to keep running? Sure.

A second Christmas family meal and afternoon to host two days before? Sure.

She gives and gives and gives. Because she’s Mom.

Not for the gratefulness. Not for the acclaim. Not for the power. Not for the reciprocating good deed. But because she’s Mom.

Because Moms put their families first. (Or should.)

No wonder she was glad to have so major a project accomplished and finished.

Three cheers aren’t enough, nor three cheerers.

Nevertheless, listen to this single cheer from this single cheerer: WooHoo!!!

“Let her own works praise her in the gates.”

That’s how the Biblical book of Proverbs ends, speaking of the virtuous woman. Look it up for yourself in your own Bible. It’s right there in Proverbs 31:31.

A Cheery 2010

Good morning! Let me tell you some of what I’m cheery about and thankful for this morning. (I’ll leave some space at the end for you to add some of your own cheerful thankfulness.)

🙂 We made it to twenty ten. We’re ten years past the old projected end of the world (2000). Furthermore, we have yet to be struck by the fearsome Y2K bug.

🙂 The story in the EU Times is likely untrue. (You know the one about the Russians expecting “outbreak of civil war within the United States before the end of winter.”)

🙂 Only one of my business partners has dealt gracelessly with me.

🙂 Our immediate Roth kin are to show up today to celebrate our Christmas, sans the usual gift exchange.

🙂 I got a good night’s sleep last night despite the trials that have come upon me in the last month.

🙂 I finally get to put up the new calendar I got from Christian Light Publications. (I also need to find a place for the one I got from Rod & Staff Publishers.)

🙂 This new-to-me, hard-to-find, IBM trackpoint keyboard works wonderfully!

🙂 My two-year-old grandson Trenton just came into my office to show me a bulldozer he must have found in our toy box.

🙂 My body still works so that I can get up from here and go outside to feed the cat, lose the dog, and sing to the cows.

🙂 It doesn’t matter whether or not we have started a new decade.

Above all, love God!