Week Four.. and Five

These last couple weeks have been so good!  Last week we did classes on first aid and disaster relief.  It was so good!  I’ve always really wanted to learn about how to deal with disaster situations, because I feel like it’s really good knowledge to be able to have.  I think the thin that stuck the most for me was that it’s not about helping everyone, it’s about every person that you help.  When you look at disasters, there’s such a huge need, and I think it would be really overwhelming, because there’s so much need and you’re only one person.  But it’s not about that – God loves every single person, individually.  And that means that even if you can just help one person, it’s worth it, because God values that life so much.

I love how much everything that we learn is centred around God!  That’s such a big part of why I wanted to do this school, and I’m so glad that I get to get this base knowledge of biology from a Christian perspective before whatever other kind of training I’m going to get.  All the speakers have talked about how, they do what they can, and then pray.  It sounds like such a simple thing, and really it is, but I think it’s something that would be really easy to forget.  It’s such a good reminder, that when we feel useless, be aren’t actually.  That’s when God wants to step in and work.  We’ve been hearing so many stories of the miracles that God’s done in places that people really just aren’t equipped to heal, and then God steps in, and whole villages are changed.  It makes me so excited to start doing clinics, and see how health care and God really do go together so much.

Week Three

This week classes were so full! I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much in such a short amount of time.  Our classes were on food and nutrition, so with that the digestive system and all the stuff that goes with that.  We learned about tons of vitamin deficiencies – how to notice them and then how to treat them. 

A crazy stat we heard this week – the amount of people over nourished (overweight) worldwide has now passed the number of people that are malnourished.

Our teacher this week is from Australia, and one of the things that he did was start every class with a bunch of pictures of either something really big, or something really small.  So one day we looked at galaxies, another we looked at creatures under the ocean (the weird ones that I’ve never seen before, not ones like Nemo).  Another day we looked at a bunch of microorganisms that cause diseases.
One of the things that really stood out to me was how much colour is in everything – especially with things that we never really see, like the fish in the ocean they’re only starting to get pictures of, or these bacteria that most people don’t ever see pictures of.  God still made them intricately, and beautiful, just because He can.

We also got to do our first bit of outreach this week!  No healthcare stuff yet, but we did get to go into one of the slums to do a kids program.  They have about 30 kids that come to it every week, so we just went along and helped out.  We got to play games with the kids, and then do face paint on them.  It was a lot of fun, they were all really little kids, so I’m not sure that they realized that when they talked to us, we didn’t get it, but it was fun to hang out with them anyways.   They were adorable – it reminded me a lot of the stuff that I got to do in Thailand on outreach.

 

This is my school!  Also there’s 4 staff that aren’t in the picture.

Week Two

Classes this week were so much fun!  We had a microbiology week, mostly about germs, because that's what we're actually going to be dealing with in clinics.  Best part about it was that we didn't really have lectures, we just did experiments, and looked at things under microscopes and such.  Got to look at blood one day, got to grow bacteria that we had taken from around our base.  It was a lot of fun - which is strange, because I always hated this week in high school biology.  But it was incredible to see how intricate things are made.  To see how much detail is put into everything that we looked at under the microscope - especially blood.  Google what blood looks like, it's incredible.  It makes me in awe of how God could make something like the ocean that I see every day so huge, and at the same time make these little cells that keep you alive, and does it both with such great detail.

Other than classes, the weeks been hard, but really good.  My grandpa passed away on Wednesday (North American Wednesday, it was Thursday here).  It's a strange thing, because we've been waiting for it for so long, but now that he's actually with God it's strange to think that it's here.  That he gets to be up in heaven worshiping God, and probably doing something really stupid that if we saw it, it would be one of those stories that we would never let go.  And it's good - knowing that he gets to be free, and that he get to actually experience heaven.  It makes me wonder how people could get through something like this without the hope of God, and it's something that I'm so grateful that I have.  And it's hard, not being home for this - not being able to be with family, or be at the memorial in a couple weeks.  But I wouldn't trade this experience in Bali for it.  So as much as I wish that I could be home next week, I don't actually (if that makes sense), because I know without a doubt that being here is where God wants me to be right now.  He's teaching me so much about depending on Him when life's hard instead of anything else - family, friends.  Not that they aren't wonderful to have around, but that when it comes down to it, God really is the only one that I need.