Barnabas Task

I can’t predict the future!  Can you?  We were on our way to Jimani yesterday and stopped in Santo Domingo to connect with Foursquare missionary Charlie Finocchiarro who was leading a caravan of California Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) going to work with Convoy of Hope.  We stopped at a tollbooth to connect, exchange a few words and waiting for one more truck to come through the tollbooth.

I asked an Emergency doctor about my right knee that has caused discomfort before this trip.   The doctor examined my knee, looked in my eyes and said, “This has the feel of a blood clot.  If I were you, I would go to the emergency room or a clinic right away.” I guess I looked at him with unbelief because he repeated it.

I did not enter Haiti today.  Kati did. I entrusted her with some great men that I have become acquainted with.  Relationships that are being carved out here cross new barriers when you say, “I trust you with her.” Kati arrived in Jimani late last night, had a Malaria shot early this morning and is there now as I write.

I will go to Haiti but it was not in the “cards” for me right now.  Can I give you a perspective?  The apostle wanted to go to Asia but was forbidden.  I don’t know his reason for being forbidden.  (Acts 16)  I do know I did everything I possibly could to go but was forbidden for now.  I have a peace, not upset about it.  This is God’s thing.  Not mine.  Feels good.

Update: I went to a clinic in Santo Domingo.  The doctors’ prognosis was thrombosis of the vein.  He recommended 5 days in bed plus meds.  I opted to go back to Santiago, with my leg positioned straight.  Kevin Delagrange and Kyle Norwood drove me back to Santiago.  I needed them for this. Kevin drove on the most dangerous highway in the Dominican Republic. Last night, late; I went to a clinic in Santiago. A cardiologist gave me a shot in the stomach and said I would rest better at the apartment, which I loved to hear.  This morning, I went to the clinic and spent the day going from station to station getting x-rays and blood tests.  I wondered about Health Care here.  I needed the tests and needed to have my leg straight.  Oh well.  The bottom-line is that no thrombosis was found in the testing!  In all of this was a caring loving wife who just happens to be a heart nurse.  Nancy was my second opinion, on the money!

Kati will have an experience that not many her age will have.  She will see first hand and will give the initial report on Barnabas Task. I won’t.  But isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?  I love this.

Would you pray for the people of Haiti tonight? The Relief effort is going well, never fast enough for some “Grande, non-fat, vanilla latte” executive who writes from afar.  Our virtual “get it now” world is meeting the reality of an unstructured, geographic location let alone a country that has been pulverized by an earthquake.

Let’s pray for relief workers who are doing all they can in the Haitian capitol and in every other area they may be.  I know what they pray at night.  “God I did what I could do.  I rest in that.”  And sometimes they weep in private because of what they have seen or heard in public.

Kevin Delagrange and Kyle Norwood have been a great blessing.  Every morning they have devotions.  They are journaling and contributing in every discussion.  Love them.  They are bro’s.  Anyone that knows me would recognize that calling someone a “bro” means they are family and I would go to the wall for them.  I feel the same from them.

The bunk beds are completed.  Today, Kyle and Kevin brought the extra lumber to the home and back yard of Jose Lino, a faithful worker with Barnabas Task.  Jose lives in Cien Fuegos where a young adult team will be pouring cement in March.  The lumber will be used to support the walls as the cement is being poured (by hand.)  Pretty cool huh?

Spoke through Skype with the Board of Associated churches early this morning.  How cool is that?  Loved meeting people for the first time through Skype.

That’s the way it is!

Grateful!

“When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion

for  them, because they were weary and scattered,

like sheep having no shepherd” Matthew 9:36