The greatest Enemy of the Best is the Good

I'm not sure who said that originally, but it hit me hard last night at the Bible study. We were in the Samuels and it was in reference to Saul's disobedience to God with the whole sacrifice thing. But wow can I apply that in my own life. Too often we settle for something comfortable and Good and completely miss out on something convincingly Best. The study was led by an American guy and is a study through the whole Bible in sequence. He's teaching several pastors who come from miles around once a week. I felt very privileged to be invited. My Mormon friend, Richard, came too... he really loves the Lord and was grateful for a chance to study with others who study the Word. The "revelation" of Joseph Smith still seems like a complete crock to me, but Richard recognizes the identity of Christ as far as I can tell.

After the study was dinner at Scott's uncle's place. Their housekeeper cooked for several of us and it was quite good. I really enjoy spending time with the other students!

Today I spent some quality time in the OR. I got to do some suturing on a skin graft, put in a couple IVs (the first was a bust, the second I got first try!) and ended up closing a face operation. To give you a picture of health care here: the surgeon watched me do a couple sutures, then left to go do paperwork. As I was doing my last suture, the patient started waking up. So I tied things up quickly and let the nurse finish up with dressing. It's not uncommon for patients to start waking up toward the end of surgery here. And yes, that should trouble you.

Richard invited me to go shoot the military's weapons today, but I stayed in surgery. Apparently if you have the cash you can shoot anything the military has, from an AK-47 to an RPG to a tank. For real. But the prices were a bit out of my budget and I was into the surgery.

I ended up going to dinner with several med students/residents from the UK and Australia. It was a lovely time. I can't hide it anymore though. I'm speaking with a Brittish/Irish accent now, one that I've acquired from Aoife and Viv. They just sound cooler and I find myself wanting to imitate them. It's not intentional. Really. =)

I get to pray every morning in beautiful sunshine overlooking the Mekong River from my 2nd floor patio. I love it. That will be my next major task I'm thinking. It's nearly 10 o'clock here and my moto-driver is waiting outside. I might give him a bit extra. He is a polio survivor with a wife and kids who is attending university. I think he could probably use a few extra riel, eh? Blessings!

Have mercy!

I've been thinking about mercy a lot lately. God tells us that we will receive mercy to the extent that we show mercy and while I don't particularly want to think about that deeply because it hurts, I find it is an incredible motivator to show kindness to the undeserving. Take my moto driver yesterday for example.

After leaving the Russian Market (where you can buy anything from rip-off North Face packs to car parts), I hailed a moto driver and asked him to take me to Gasolina, a restaurant where some of the crew was meeting up for some food and salsa dancing. He assured me that he could get me there for 2000 riel (about 50 cents).

Now, a moto driver will maintain a reasonable speed as long as he knows where he's going, but not fast, they never actually go fast. However, when he's looking for something, or somewhere, he slows down noticeably. So when my driver slowed down and started looking around, I realized I'd been had and he had NO CLUE where Gasolina was. We stopped and asked several tuk-tuk drivers and got excellent directions all the way across town, but of course, upon arriving, no Gasolina to be had. This went on for roughly an hour and a half. In the meantime, I saw some beautiful temples in Phnom Penh and observed wonderful street life. No closer to Gasolina.

So I brusquely dismissed my driver after realizing we would never get there, with full intention of giving him the promised fifty cents. And I did. But somehow after realizing how much I've been given and how frequently I wander without really having direction I couldn't part leaving him with such a pittance. The world says we should give people only what they deserve. Not so in the Kingdom of Heaven.

I ended up finding Gasolina's address online and directing another driver there myself. A great system. No salsa dancing on Tuesday nights anymore though. The Lord is teaching me patience.

Flash back to the Russian market: these little girls kept hounding me for food and looking quite sad and disheveled. I was a good tourist and politely ignored them after saying no. Yet when I found them later and bought them some food, the smiles on their faces were priceless. I think I've found a new hobby. Jesus told us that if we give even a cup of cold water in His name, He will remember us. So I tried to teach them to say "Jesus loves me," but I don't think they quite got it. They just smiled a lot. And said "thank you, sir."

After Gasolina, we went over to an expat house party for a bit and played some Nintendo Wii before I flagged a moto and retired for the evening.

Morning was glorious as usual. My patio overlooking the Mekong River is beautiful at 8 o'clock. Surgery was slow again today. I watched a cataract repair, a cleft lip and a cheiloplasty (lip repair). I also saw a woman with some nasty acid burns on her chest and shoulders. Terrible. Which reminds me that we toured an acid-burn victims' rehab center yesterday where they basically re-integrate acid burn victims into society. Really cool work they're doing there.

Had some good talks about Christ, Islam and Mormonism today with my friends here. Crazy stuff people believe... One of the highlights of the day was Aoife teaching Scott and I how to do a full cardiovascular exam. She's brilliant.

Show some mercy today. To some one who doesn't deserve it I mean. You might just like it. Peace!

A few hours more a.k.a. First Blood

As I was leaving the internet cafe of my last posting, I was walking down a dark alley (sorry Pop) and was hailed in English to come have a beer. So I spent much of Sunday evening sitting at a cafe/bar hanging out with people from Australia, California, Canada, Chile and France. Fascinating stories, good times. I've been finding that the subject of God comes up quite frequently and I always get to share bits and pieces of my faith. It doesn't feel like much, but I guess farmers don't feel like they're doing a ton of work every time they throw a seed in the field.

Yesterday was my first day at Kien Khleang. I watched a little girl be transformed from an aberration to a beautiful child; what was a hideously divided mouth became what will be a mild scar. I saw a man with an abscessed tooth and a huge cyst distorting his face. A few hours gave him back his face and removed severe pain from his life. I anticipate many more life-changing surgeries as I stand by.

A profile of the other students with me:

Viv - Brittish girl with 1 year left
Aoife (ee-fah) - Irish girl who will graduate in a couple weeks!
Scott - premed from Winnipeg, has family in town
Richard - premed from Utah, in the application process for med school

Everyone but Scott will leave after this week and a new crew will be coming in. I've really enjoyed getting to meet this group. We finished up here at about 3:30 yesterday and I headed home for a few hours. I'm still loving relaxing and all that. At 6:30, Viv & Aoife met me and Tuon (Samnang's cousin) at this great Indian restaurant to cap off the day.

Today has been pretty slow, but I managed some really good time with the Lord this morning... reading, praying, basking... It made me realize how little time I normally spend with Him. That must change. It will be interesting to see how my attention span changes over the next few weeks. I really want to know the Lord and will be able to make time to grow that relationship.

I'm starting to get a feel for how things work around here, you basically wander around until you see something interesting, then jump into the middle of it. I took out some stitches today and will probably start helping out more now that I know the drill. I'm not sure how long I'll keep up this minute-by-minute account, but it's been fun so far. Tonight I think we're going salsa dancing =).

A fistful of hours

Riding through the rain and the flooded streets of an Asian city on the back of a moto. Eating grilled steak with weird sauces and vegetables while listening to traditional Christian hymns.
Watching cookie-cutter Cambodian girls sing cookie-cutter songs with a back-up band and then proceeding to dance to some weird kind of techno with my friend Samnang in a huge Western-style club. Driving back and falling asleep to the crowing of a rooster next door.

A few snapshots of last night.

Morning was glorious at 6:30. I can't believe I woke up feeling rested. I had nothing to do. No commitments, in fact, no real possibilities for entertaining myself. So I hung out with God. It was a bit uncomfortable having that much time.

Samnang wanted to go get breakfast, but I was reading, so he left. And stayed gone, so I got his brother to take me on a tour of the city in search of a church. Yeah, it was the SunWAY Hotel they meet at, not the SUN Hotel. So I walked into church 40 minutes late, just in time to catch some awesome Word about seeing and praying. So I decided I needed to spend some serious free time praying so that I could see from God's perspective. I can't wait. It was a pretty traditional service otherwise. If Eric reads this, he should know that the preacher mentioned the sons of Isachaar and said that now is the time for us to be like them. Cool confirmation from God that I was in the right place.

After church, a sweet couple that is on the board of directors for a huge healthcare organization dropped me off at Friends Cafe (shout-out Anna) where I met some Norweigens that I hung out with for the afternoon. Great curry too!

We hit up the touristy places and it was pretty crazy. S-21 was the premier Khmer Rouge prison and we went on a tour of that. We also took a tuk-tuk (moto with a cart) out to the Killing Fields to see the mass graves and the skull monument. 20,000 people were killed from S-21 at the Killing Fields. 7 escaped. It was pretty staggering.

I'm not sure what the rest of the evening will hold, but the options are endless. Tomorrow will be my first day actually working and I'm pretty excited.

My trip so far: Check out my pictures!

Day One

What a perfect way to begin the summer. Sitting in the Kenai airport, the intercom comes on with "All flights have been canceled for the night, we can rebook you for the morning." So rather than doing something lame like driving back up to Anchorage, we hopped in my dad's plane and made it in pretty good time.

Good enough time for me to watch the new Pirates of the Carribean with some of the Anchorage crew (thanks to Jannell and Seth for making that all work). So after the flick I said my final goodbyes and hit the airport.

I slept pretty much the whole way from Anchorage to Taipei, a whopping 10 hours. Needed. I talked to some Taiwanese chicks from Taipei to Phnom Penh (said more like Nom Pen). They were really friendly and spoke good English. And they definitely wanted to hear about Jesus (for real). Who was I to stand in their way?? So yeah, they got an earful and my trip was off to a successful start. Keep praying guys, it's working!

I grabbed a taxi from the Phnom Penh airport and subsequently got severely ripped off (15 bucks for a 10 mile drive... seriously). But he dropped me off at the Kien Khleang Surgical Rehabilitation Center (he said most drivers didn't know where it was, but his mom had had surgery there). No one was working on Saturday, but after wondering around long enough, I met up with Samnang who is now my best friend in Cambodia. We've been hanging out all afternoon doing various Cambodian-esque things.

I told him I wanted to go to church tomorrow, and he said he's been wanting to go lately and could he go with me. I tried to convince him he shouldn't go, but he insisted. Psyche. I told him I'd love it, so we're on for tomorrow. Other meaningful events of today:

• I'm staying at Samnang's uncle's house - a whopping 110 bucks a month for the whole upstairs and patio. Dang.
• We ate some sweet food and got Cokes for like 2 bucks.
• We waited out a rainstorm in a motorcycle shop while it took 2-3 hours to get his bike fixed. Final talley: 9 dollars.
• I'm learning some basic Cambodian... excuse me, Khmer.

That's all I've got for now. Grace and peace to all of you. I'll put some pictures up next time if I can. God has been awesome and I'm stoked to see what He's up to here.

My Itinerary

For those of you wanting to stalk me, or perhaps plot my course across the world for a school project, or even pray for me, here are my flights currently:


FR 25 MAY LV ANCHORAGE 415A CHINA AIRLINE 11T
SAT 26MAY AR TAIPEI 605A

SA 26MAY LV TAIPEI 720A CHINA AIRLINE 689T
AR PHNOM PENH 1000A


SA 23JUNE LV PHNOM PENH 1050A CHINA AIRLINE 690K
AR TAIPEI 320P

A SA 23JUN LV TAIPEI 440P CHINA AIRLINE 6K
AR LOS ANGELES 125P

A SA 23JUN LV LOS ANGELES 410P SOUTHWEST 1228Q
AR HOUSTON-HOBBY 920P /

A MO 25JUN LV HOUSTON-IAH 650P CONTINENTAL 810N
26JUN AR GUAYAQUIL 1217A


WE 25 JULY LV GUAYAQUIL 105A CONTINENTAL 818V
AR ANCHORAGE 430P

We humbly suggest that you can do both

What a sweet day. It's funny how I can feel like the sticky floor of a movie theater and then remember that I am a child of the ruler of the universe and ask Him to make things better for me... and He does. I spent a lot of today studying and generally laying around the house, not what I would have picked for my second to last Saturday in Alaska for a while. It kind of got me down until I started asking God which direction to move for the evening.

So I ended up buying a sweet backpack for my summer travels. I think it was a wise purchase. Should last me for a while and it's freakin sweet. Did I mention that it's sweet?

My indecision at REI made me late for the movie that I had debated going to all day, but when I spoke with the Lord, I felt like I didn't have much of a choice. I don't want to spoil Amazing Grace for you, but the passion of the main character and his single-minded pursuit of God's calling on his life reminded me of who I am. We are called to different things in this life, but whatever we do, we are called to worship through. I want to absolutely pour everything I have into every task that the Lord sets before me. I want to be the best student in the world for Him, I want to be the best surgeon, I want to be the best skier. I WANT PASSION for every second of every day and I want it because God deserves a life FULLY lived for Him.

After being severely inspired, I decided to get over myself and not worry about the pride thing and invited the crew that I watched the movie with over for prayer. You know, some Christians get together EVERY DAY???? Craziness. Of course, it turned out to be an AWESOME night and some people received mucho encouragement from the Lord, myself definitely included. Passion was stirred up among His people and friendships were deepened. Holy cow God is cool (can I say that?). I love this being obedient thing. I think I'll try it tomorrow.

(oh, P.S. the title of this is in reference to the movie, in answer to the main character's ponderance over whether he should pursue God or continue his political career... a little parallelism there for a lot of folks)

Conviction

So you always here those people saying "you should journal, it will turn you into Superman." and stuff. Okay. I give.

Actually what happened is I was hanging out with Adam, Dan & Daniel last night and realized that after this month, I won't just be able to go hang out with them whenever the mood strikes me. They were wondering how we could all keep in touch and share what the Lord has been doing in our lives and the whole blogging thing came up. So I'm hoping to post here sporadically with seriously awesome stories of God's work in the world. Here's a sweet example:

So yesterday started out rough. I won't go into the details, but I wasn't seeing the joy of the Lord in my life. So instead of doing something productive as I'm prone to do, I sat in the garage of a tire shop for an hour or so with Daniel while his tire was being repaired. It was good. I shared with him what was going on.

Diagnosis: Renew your freakin' mind! I KNOW I've been needing to get in the Word more for about the last month, probably longer. So when I got home, I did. My day got better.

Huh. Imagine that. I obeyed God and He blessed me for it. It is so dang simple.

So here's the Scripture I latched on to, which is how I will end this initial rant on God's awesomeness (it's in Jeremiah if you feel compelled to find it):

This is what the Lord says,
Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans,
Who rely upon human strength,
They are like stunted shrubs in the desert,
With no hope for the future,
They will live in the barren wilderness,
In an uninhabited salty land.

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
And make the Lord their hope and confidence.
They are like trees planted along a riverbank,
With roots that reach deep into the water,
Such trees are not bothered by the heat,
Or worried by long months of drought.
Their leaves are always green,
And they never stop producing fruit.