If

I haven’t even been back 2 weeks and all I feel like doing is complaining.  It’s never been so hard for me before.  But there are so many if’s now.  

If Zane’s fevers would stay away.  This is the root of my worries.  So it’s no wonder we are being attacked in this area.  I could be sick and not worry so much, but when your children are sick, it’s a different story.  You try to do the right thing.  I honestly think he’s fighting a virus from our trip out here, but still, you worry.  Part of me wants to pack up.

If special people would quit offering non-helpful advice.  You still get annoyed when people that you DON’T EVEN KNOW write to you and tell you maybe “it’s time to move somewhere else.”  There is a special place for those kinds of people.  And I don’t particularly care to hear from that person ever again.  It makes me want to password lock our blog. 

If it were not so DIRTY here!  Everywhere is dirty.  There is no escape!  In our house, the cleanest of places around here, it’s still dirty.  (Well, Wendy’s house has way cleaner floors!)  I came back home last Friday night.  Our house was clean ‘for here.’  You could tell that Zachee had cleaned the windows and floors.  He even cleaned the windows in our bedroom.  Still, there was dust.  I had gotten too used to the clean-ness at my mother-in-law’s house in Maryland.  It’s sooo dirty here!  Don’t even get me started talking about the hospital!

If it were not so hot!  It is stinkin’ hot right now.  I’ve even missed 3 weeks of the hottest time of the year here.  But it’s still stinkin’ hot!  It makes you lazy and unproductive!  

If it would just rain!  Apparently it’s already rained 3 times this year.  But it’s still so hot!  It’s threatened to rain three times this week already.  Last night I REALLY thought it would pour.  There was even beautiful lightening and dark clouds, but it just got all windy and spit several drops.  The wind is beautiful and somewhat of a relief I must say though. 

If I didn’t get this severe diarrhea!  Yesterday I was struck with cholera-like diarrhea.  I probably went 30 or so times.  Then, just as I thought I was getting better, I vomited severely.  Olen was sick last week with some fatigue sickness.  Everything was quite vague, but he looked awful.  

If my garden would grow.  It’s just so hot and dry here.  I pay Bria 2 dollars a day 5 days a week to water and make the garden grow.  But it still looks pretty desolate.  I don’t think it’s her fault. 

If the neonates would stop dying here!  I still have the picture from Sunday night of two perfectly-healthy-looking but dead baby boys lying on the table next to each other.  The first was there when I arrived just as it delivered; the second was a shoulder dystocia that had been stuck for over 5 minutes.  It may have been dead before I arrived, and it took me only a minute to deliver him.  Try as I might, CPR would not revive him.  Those two beautiful boys are forever etched in my mind.  Is what I’m doing even making a difference?  It seems like they just KEEP dying!

If we could teach to prepare for emergencies.  Another night this past week, I couldn’t find any DeLees (suction devices for neonates) to suction out the newborn’s lungs that were filled with meconium (poop stained amniotic fluid).  The ambu-bag that was there was broken.  The newborn wasn’t breathing well.  So I wiped the mouth off with alcohol and did resuscitative breathing.  Praise God she’s still living and went home after 3 days of IV antibiotics for her fever.  It seems sometimes like NOTHING has changed in the year and a half we’ve been here!  I had this problem when I first got here (no materials to use for emergencies) and it STILL exists!  

If the poor were not so poor.  Well, it’s really poor here.  Louise, the lady that does my laundry actually does quite well for here.  But she’s still very poor.  She makes 25 dollars a month.  Her husband is blind, and can’t work.  Louise and her large family have ONE mud hut, and a second one being built right now.  

If!

If!

If!

I could go on and on.

If...then, maybe I could have some peace of mind.

So this blog is getting quite negative.  

I pause.  

I walk outside to my garden.  Yes, my dry and quite desolate garden.  My wonderful dad has watered the small watermelon patch, the 4 surviving grape vines, the squash plants that aren’t producing, the Oze’ (kind of like spinach), the 2 foot tall avocado tree with all of the leaves eaten off, and the 4 new trees that my sister gave me.   I take a closer look to see what’s still growing.  

I’m holding Zane who currently doesn’t have a fever.  I’m looking at 4 small mango trees that my mom has grown from seed.  They are now 6 inches tall.  I’m about to leave when I notice something else.  

It’s a pineapple plant!  

I planted 3 small pineapple tops several months ago and thought they’d all died.  They continued to get water because they were next to the mangos and watermelons.  There is a new bright green shoot coming out of one of them!  

If any of you are gardeners, you know of the joy you get when things grow that are not supposed to.  

I’m reminded of the Pineapple Story, the missionary who grew pineapples.  He finally gave all of his problems to God.  Yes, missionaries have problems too.  They don’t even deal with them the right way most of the time, but God is still forgiving and takes us back time after time again.  

I’ve never before grown a pineapple plant, but maybe God wants me to give it to Him and watch Him take control of that...and everything else in my life as well.