A summary statement for the day would be that today was preparing for Sunday night. My day started out with waking up to the rooster’s call, seriously. The sun was just rising when I got up this morning. I don’t really know what time it was. Around 7:00 AM, we went to the cafeteria to have breakfast. The food was very good, but I am already starting to feel the effects of not having my usual amount of coffee. (No caffeinated beverages are served on this campus. I won’t have a soda or coffee until Monday!) After breakfast we came back to the house and started to unpack the suitcases filled with supplies and the eight boxes that we sent over earlier this year.
Before packing each bag with supplies, we looked around and estimated how many supplies we had and I said a little prayer that we had more than we had budgeted for and originally counted. Earlier in the year we planned for 400 working students. We wanted each student to have some school supplies and some basic toiletries that would be packed in a bag of some sort. A few weeks ago, the guidance counselors of the working students said that they were expecting around 600 students this year. Mom and Mrs. Darlene we have lunch at that time and they prayed about it. We were also told about 2 weeks before we arrived that there were 17 officers of the Working Students Association. We found out today that there are 25. We were a little discouraged because we had not planned so this morning at breakfast, as well as last night, we decided exactly how we were going to pick and choose who gets what. I remembered last year that we had only supplies and backpack for 300 and somehow 400 students received them, so I said the little prayer for God to show us some miracles again…
Before packing all of the smaller tote bags, we wanted to fill up the backpacks that we had gathered for the officers with the first pick of the supplies. Mom and Ate Glad started counting and counted 25 bags! Mom, with Dad agreeing, said she had only purchased 17 backpacks and only packed 17. But we had the 25 bags and filled them with good school supplies, toiletries, and a note from the group. After that we made an assembly line and started to fill up the other tote bags. Each student, on Sunday evening, will receive a tote bag, 2 spiral notebooks/notebook paper, 3 pencils, 1 pen, 1 pencil sharpener, 1 folder, 1 ruler, 2 bars of soap, 1 shampoo and conditioner, 1 toothbrush, 1 toothpaste, 1 comb, and a wash cloth. Now, keep in mind that a bag packed like this would last a typical American for maybe one month for these working students they are so frugal in the use of these items that they may last for over a semester to a year. Some of the students from last year still have some of the supplies that we gave out! As we continued, Christie and I started noticing that as some supplies were diminishing (like toothbrushes because they are very difficult to get donated) we still had plenty of bags left to fill. So, we both decided to count the completed bags. We had 420 completed bags and we were still filling them up with a huge stack left to start. By the end of the morning, we had filled 600 bags full of supplies (and don’t worry, if someone didn’t get a tooth brush, ruler, etc. we supplemented with addition supplies that were extra). 600 bags! 2 miracles before lunchtime! All that I can say is that God is good.
After lunch, we took a tour of the clinic because we had a lot of medical supplies that were donated by Mrs. Darlene, an RN, and were given via inheritance from Ate Jean, who passed away last May. I can’t really describe in words how shocked I was by the clinic, so you will have to take a look at the photos. Maybe I’m being ethnocentric, but I don’t know how they practice medicine effectively and efficiently. I know that when I worked at the hospital I was responsible for 26 patients at some time; however, I had monitors and people watching monitors on all of the patients so if any of them became critical (especially since I worked on the ventilator unit) I could respond quickly. Here, there are no monitors. Blood pressures are taken the “old fashion” way without digital screen. Heart rates are calculated “the old fashion” way. Oxygen levels are only taken when absolutely needed because they do not have many pulse oximeters. How they do it, I don’t know. We saw the x-ray department which is an area that my parents were very excited to see because they are radiology technologists. Mom cried heavily at the sight. The x-ray unit is an old military x-ray unit (probably from Vietnam or even from one of the earlier wars). The aprons that they are using have no lead in them. (Which for you who don’t know much about radiology, let me explain why this is what made Mom cry. Lead aprons are used for protection of internal organs, especially glands. Every time a patient has an x-ray they are shielded by using aprons because of the high amount of radiation that a patient is exposed to. This radiation, even from one x-ray especially old units, can cause cancer because it kills cells and/or mutates them. Lead is what the aprons are filled with.) We then saw labor and delivery, which was basically the same as the bedroom that I’m sleeping in now. Again, words cannot describe what we saw in the clinic. This will probably become another project of ours in the future.
Anyway, on to a happier note. After lunch, because we had worked so hard the morning, we got to take a nap! ;) After nap time, we went to eat dinner with the guidance counselors and the officers of the working students. After dinner we all came back to the house. We introduced ourselves and then had each of the officers introduce themselves. I write about each person’s personal story because there were 25 of them; however, I can tell you that most of them have been going to AUP for the past 4 years. Only one is planning on graduating in March for sure. One is currently praying for a sponsorship because she has an internship that she must complete before she graduates, which means she cannot work in order to pay for school and food. One person has been going to school for 5 years and is expecting another 4 years to go. The most unique major of all of the officers, well I guess in my opinion, is Filipino. This major consists of learning the various areas, cultures, etc. of the Philippine islands. I believe she will be pursuing teaching after obtaining her degree. So, I guess it would be equivalent to a major in Anthropology. After introduction, the Torch Bearers, the choir of the working students, came in and sang to us (this put us around 50 people in the living and dining area). When they left, we handed out the officer bags, gave them 3 laptops, and gave the guidance counselors gifts.
So, we had a very blessed day. Needless to say, we are all exhausted and I am once again the last one to go to bed! ;) Tomorrow is Sabbath so I don’t know exactly what we have in store, but I will definitely blog about it. Goodnight! (Well, I guess really good morning to you!)
No comments:
Post a Comment