This week, as I dealt with the thoughts of home, and sacrifice, I felt such a grace resting on me. I have spoken of my adoration of mornings before, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to quite communicate how much they refresh me. Some nights, as I fall asleep, I grow excited to wake up, however many hours later, and enjoy the morning. There is such a peace in the mornings here. No matter how hard the day before may have been, no matter how the city may have treated you, you awake to find it still sleeping, and are able to fall in love with it all over again. It’s like a toddler who spilled your coffee, on your favorite shirt, kicked you in the head during a tantrum, told the neighbor a family secret, and broke the phone all in one day, then he goes to bed, and looks so peaceful. The next morning you awake to find him just barely stirring with rumpled hair and pajamas, sleepy eyes, and snuggly. Every memory of frustration and annoyance is gone, as you look at him and fall in love all over again. My mornings are a bit like that. I wake to find most of this city still sleeping, and I can hardly hold in how much I love it. I love the women and children carrying the day’s freshly baked bread on their heads, back to the house. I love the little kids heading off to school, and the smells of fresh bread, and falafel. I love watching the dogs begin to stir, as the cats begin to wind down. I love avoiding buckets of water being thrown into the streets, and shop keepers readying their businesses for the day. The butchers are up and chop, chop, chopping away, and men are sitting in “hole in the wall” cafes drinking Turkish coffee and eating breakfast… the city begins to awake, and I feel as I watch, I just may have not only the strength, but the passion to take on another day. Even when bottoms are grabbed, and babies die; even when elderly pass on, and babies grow sick; even when mothers loose their children or women get beaten… life continues, and somehow there is still beauty.

We had the opportunity to share with a group of nursing students about the beauty nursing. Even though I am not a “nurse”, I shared about my wonderful job back home, working with elderly. Most of these students have not volunteered themselves to this field, but have been volunteered by their parents. It was shocking for them to hear the three of us share about how you can truly love your job, and change the world through you work. It was a blessing to remember my beautiful residents, to be able to share with others how God used my job to mold me, grow me, and how I was able to be the hands and feet of Jes.us.

I had another go at injections this week. I successfully gave two. It was on my third, that I ran into a little trouble. In order to open the glass bottle housing the medicine, you have to pop the top off. This is risky business since the whole thing is glass. They are designed to break in a certain place; however, this one did not. As I pushed down to pop the glass lid off, it broke, and sliced my finger. I quickly, (and rather impressively sneakily), covered my bloody hand, told my friend to finish the injection and walked to the bathroom. I did this all with out the poor patient knowing… that is until she came into the bathroom later to take a urine sample, and found me holding my hand over my heart humming quietly to myself. “No stitches Lo.rd, not here. Not here…” After a time of praying and applying pressure, I removed the tissues to find it had stopped bleeding, and the cut was sticking together. Hum-dil-alah. I went down a doctor who cleaned it up and bandaged it. No stitches. Hum-dil-alah. I went back up to the antenatal clinic. My patient was still there. I took her to the bed to palpate her. There was something different about her, not just that she was Somalian. She didn’t smile, didn’t interact at all, she just lay there, almost numb. She’s 37 weeks, the baby is almost here. We went back to the desk to fill out the rest of her paper work. We look at her personal info… two children, no husband; this pregnancy was a result of rape. Her husband must have been killed. She has no family. Suddenly my throbbing finger didn’t hurt as much. Father, give her peace.


Yesterday we helped the sick and elderly in our community get to church. It was really amazing. I really love elderly. We also got to sing some songs and dance with the children. It was a wonderful morning, even though the service was hours and hours of Arabic, a language I have yet to master. The afternoon was spent at the Mother Theresa house. First we sang and danced for the elderly, and then we went up to the babies. I have grown to deeply love this one baby girl, about nine months old, and possible has Down syndrome. As we sang, she laid her sweet little head on my shoulder and sucked on two of her little fingers, just listening to the music. I could hardly contain my love for her. She is, and will always be such a gift to this world.


As we were going home, we stopped at this tiny little shop run by a beautiful round Musl.im woman. A few weeks ago she didn’t speak English, but yesterday she glowed as she asked us if we would like to sit on some crates outside her shop and have a cup of Nescafe. We accepted her offer, sat down, and enjoyed one of the best “broken English” conversations I’ve ever had, along with THE best cup of Nescafe I’ve ever had. She confessed she had learned to speak English, so she could talk to us. “I want to speak you very much..”
It was all in all a delightful day. I could hardly remember missing Thanksgiving, or any of the other heartbreaking events brought about by daily life in this country. For, life continues, and somehow there is still beauty.

May you find beauty today, even if you have to search until night fall, it will be worth it