It’s been an interesting day. It’s been sad. It’s been weird. It’s been stressful. It’s been terrifying. It’s been satisfying. It’s what I both love and hate about surgery. Actually, for a guy who likes his days to be predictable and “under control”, it’s downright comical. How strange that God has led me to this place to do this work. In the end, it’s God that gets all the credit because I’m just a scared guy who is trying his best but is sorely outmatched. It’s late at night and I’m dog tired but I want to put the day in writing. I’m still trying to get used to always being on-call.

The young boy I wrote about in the last two posts took a horrible turn for the worse a day or so after I wrote the last post. I thought we were winning the battle with nutrition, but then his abdominal wound fell apart. His intestines were exposed to the air. Because of all the inflammation, they weren’t “hanging out” but they were exposed. Unfortunately, he looked way worse clinically and would not tolerate another operation at that time. We started wound care but disaster struck the next day when a hole opened up in his small intestines and intestinal juice began pouring out of his wound. This is called a fistula and, without intravenous nutrition, is very deadly. In his debilitated state, he had no chance short of a miracle. The miracle did not come. He worsened over the week and died this afternoon. My heart aches. It’s so hard watching people die but I know God is in control. Though I don’t understand, I must trust Him.

My first operation of the day was a woman with a massive spleen with a massive cyst associated with it. In this area, when huge cysts are noted either on the liver, spleen or in the lung, it is usually something called hydatid disease. It is caused by a parasite called Ecchinococcus, commonly called dog tape worm. It lives in the gastrointestinal tract of dogs and the worm ovums are passed in the stool where humans then eat it from contaminated food. It can form cysts within various organs with active organisms, called protoscolices, and is most commonly found in the liver, lung and spleen. This woman had been treated with a drug that kills the worm, called albendazole.

My grand total of experience with surgical treatment of the disease was watching one of the other surgeons operate on a man with two cysts in his lung. Apparently that means I’m ready. We opened her abdomen and mobilized her stomach out of the way to expose the wall of the cyst. It and the spleen nearly filled her abdomen. There were enormous, abnormal vessels splayed all over the thing. We used a needle to aspirate it and drew out the typical (2 for 2, that is) clear fluid of hydatid disease. It was quickly apparent that removing the cyst and/or the spleen was likely to kill her, so we decided to do what I had observed on the lung case. We widely opened the thing and sucked it out, including the “daughter” cysts inside. After cleaning it out, we stuffed the cavity with a wonderful organ called the omentum (a fatty apron that hangs off the colon, great for stuffing spaces, stopping bleeding, helping infection and sealing holes) and closed her up. So far so good, we’ll see.

Hydatid cyst in spleen

Removing daughter cysts

The next operation should have been subtitled “how ignorance made me bold.” This was an anemic little lady who came in with a huge mass in the left side of her abdomen. On ultrasound, it looked like a kidney tumor. As near as we could tell, it did not extend into the renal vein or into the inferior vena cava (the main vein going to the heart from the lower part of the body), which would have made resection really hard. Beyond that, it was hard to get much information from the ultrasound. Since kidney cancers can still have hopeful responses even when huge ones are removed we decided to try it.

Now, in America, we don’t even like to put in an IV line without a CT scan so I was really wishing I had one. Here in Ethiopia, I’ve started calling it the Soddo CT scan: Cut the Tummy.  So we opened her abdomen and started exploring. Sure enough, it was a huge kidney tumor. It was difficult to ascertain what was going on around the edges so we started mobilizing and exposing stuff. After a lot of tedious work and anxiety, we were able to get the colon off and we identified the main artery and vein going into the kidney. These were, thankfully, divided safely. Whew, I thought! Now we can hog this thing out. As we started “hogging” we got to the top portion and realized the tumor extended well beyond the kidney. This is where the “Soddo CT scan” really falls behind the real CT scan. There are a lot more ugly surprises this way. Further tedious exploration (made much more painful when you thought you were over the hump) revealed the tumor involved the adrenal gland, the pancreas and the spleen.

I thought about it for a minute and decided we were committed at this point, so we pushed on for the home run. We mobilized the stomach away from the spleen and identified the pancreas. We divided the artery and vein to the spleen and then cut the pancreas in half. Following this, we were able to get around the spleen and the mass and remove it from the abdominal side wall. It left an impressive hole. Again, so far so good, we’ll see.

Kidney tumor

Kidney, spleen and tail of pancreas

God gave me a couple of hours to eat dinner before He delivered the last punch in the gut. The on-call resident called to inform me that a four year old girl had just arrived after breathing in some food and was in the operating room on oxygen. She was having a hard time breathing. Great… something else I’ve never done before.

I hustled up and found the little girl lying on the table struggling for air with an oxygen mask held to her face. I thank God that she was maintaining a good oxygen level, though. I grabbed our bronchoscope to see if I could see anything in her airway. It is an adult size but I was hoping it would fit. I was able to get the scope into her airway and I saw what looked like a pea or something lodged where the trachea splits to go to the two lungs, way down there.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any graspers or forceps that I can pass down the scope to grab stuff. I couldn’t think of any instruments we have that would reach down there. At this point, I polled the audience. The residents informed me that the usual method of dealing with this is to perform a tracheostomy, hang the kid upside down by her feet and slap her back until whatever it is comes out. I stared incredulously for a minute and decided, what the heck, if it has worked before, it’s better than anything I’ve got.

After fervent prayer, we cleaned her neck and injected local anesthetic. We cut down to the trachea and made a hole. One of the residents grabbed her ankles and flipped her upside down and another resident started pounding on her back. We laid her back down and put in a tracheostomy tube to give her some oxygen. She still sounded pretty crummy so I put the bronchoscope down the hole and looked. It was still there, hadn’t moved. We tried several more rounds of furious, inverted beating but to no avail. We then moved on to sticking things down there. We tried several clamps and even tried guiding a suction tube down in hopes if sucking it up. Nothing was working. By God’s grace, she was able to maintain her oxygen level in between our attempts. In desperation and after more prayer, we tried another round of back slapping. At this point, I remembered that in our medical supply container there is a catheter called a Fogerty catheter that is used to pull out blood clots from arteries. The gist is it’s a small catheter that you pass beyond something. You then blow up a balloon beyond it and use it like an anchor to dredge it out. I told everyone I would be right back and ran off to the container.

When I got back she actually looked pretty comfortable. I ran the scope down again with the hopes of guiding the resident visually as he tried to pass the Fogerty beyond the food. To my amazement, the airway was clear! Nothing was there. I asked if anything had come out and they said no. So I passed the scope through the hole in the trachea, now going up, toward the head. Sure enough, it was sitting just below her vocal cords.  About half a second later, she started coughing and vomiting everywhere. As the guys at the head of the bed started sucking furiously, I noticed a green thing come out of her mouth that kind of looked like the offending pea. Once everything calmed down, I put the scope back in saw only her vocal cords. It seemed to be gone. I confirmed that it wasn’t back down below and we thanked God. She’s doing fine, albeit with a tracheostomy tube. Hopefully we can pull the tube soon.

Well, I’m tired and God only knows what is coming up later tonight or tomorrow. I think I’ll go to bed.

Paul

This week has been slower from a medical standpoint, so I thank God for the chance to spend more time with Him. As an update regarding the patients I described in my last post, the young boy with multiple segments of dead small intestine is doing reasonably well. I was able to put his intestines back together again and we’ve started nutrition again. He has a long way to go, though, but God seems to be healing him. The 18-year old man with the twisted intestines did not survive. He died about six hours after surgery. This was not unexpected but we wanted to give him a chance. Before we operated on him, we talked with him about Jesus. He said he was a Christian and attended one of the churches in the area. We specifically talked with him about the possibility of dying that day. He said he had put his faith in Jesus’ work on the cross and that he felt ready to meet the Lord. We praise Christ for that. For this young man, death was no longer the enemy. The woman with the retained placenta and anemia did well and has gone home.

As I’ve been studying the Word, I’ve been thinking lately about the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden. What really happened there and how does it affect us today? As I’m wrestling with this, I wanted to share some of my thoughts about it in sort of a ‘forum’ environment. I would invite the critiques of wiser and better educated people. I know a thing or two about surgery but I’m no theologian.  I may be off base, so let me know. Even if I’m not off base, I may just be a little late on the scene.

In fact, as I contemplated sharing my thoughts, I started to chuckle as an illustration of my attempt came to mind. There is a scene in the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber’ where Jim Carey’s character, Lloyd Christmas, is walking out of a bar in Aspen. He sees a newspaper headline in a frame on the wall and pauses to look at it. It is about the first moon landing of the Apollo missions. In amazement, he says, “That’s great!!” and as he walks out he screams for everyone to hear, “WE LANDED ON THE MOON!!!”

So, anyway, whether it’s wrong or just common knowledge that I’m just now seeing, I’ll share what I’m thinking. Forgive me if I struggle to present it in a coherent manner. I find it challenging to get these thoughts and ideas out of my head and into language. I’ve always admired gifted writers and speakers who do it so much better.

In Genesis 2:15-17, it says, “Then the Lord God took the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” In the next chapter, Genesis 3:1-7, it says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

And the world has never been the same since. I believe in the doctrine of Original Sin, that somehow all of mankind was “in” Adam at his fall and that all mankind fell at that time. Therefore, we are all born into this world broken from the outset. We aren’t content with that, of course, and we all proceed to add our own thoughts, voices and actions to the active rebellion against God. As I read this passage for the umpteenth time, I wondered, “What really happened with that tree?” What was it about that fruit that killed us all?

I’ll start with a few observations. At first blush, I have to admit that this story kind of underwhelms me. In light of all the evil and horrors we know of the world today eating some fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” seems kind of tame. It’s not like Adam got in a fight and killed someone or carved a statue and sacrificed Eve to it. It fails to rock my world as badly as it clearly rocked the world.

But then again, most horrible things seem to start out much less conspicuous. We marvel at yet another government official who is arrested in an FBI sting when he tries to have a sexual rendezvous with a 10-year old girl he met online. But I don’t think any of those guys just decided out of the blue one day that they wanted to have sex with a 10-year old stranger. They probably didn’t even decide out of the blue they wanted to start sinking hours and hours of their lives into pornography. In truth, it probably started one time where they were stressed and anxious and they remembered the little adrenaline rush they got when they stumbled on a picture of a naked woman. And so they decide to hide from life for a little while by indulging their eyes. Then little by little it grows and begins to take control and even worse things happen. So one of the things that really interest me about Adam’s fall is that, according to the Bible, it is the “little” thing that kicked off the whole sordid show we have now. There must be something important there.

My second observation has to do with the Law (that is, the Ten Commandments and all the rules and guidelines set forth in the Bible). As a Christian, I’ve heard, read and learned many times that grace and righteousness by faith came before the Law was given. According to the Apostle Paul, Abraham was considered righteous before God not because he followed the Law but because he had faith. In fact it was 430 years later that the Law was even given. So God’s grace and mercy came before we even had the rules to try and measure up. What I haven’t thought much about is that the fall and death (the very reasons we need God’s grace and mercy) also came before we had the rules. Now I don’t believe God is either capricious or interested in tricking anyone. If Adam had killed himself by breaking the Law, and God isn’t interested in tricking anyone, it seems God would have given Adam the Law so that he might not break it. If God had pronounced judgment on Adam for breaking the third Commandment, Adam would probably have had a point in exclaiming, “What third Commandment?” (This is one point especially that I would seek the wisdom of better educated people.) But rather we read in Genesis that God didn’t give Adam the Law, but God did give a warning about the very thing that killed Adam.

Hence we’re back to this tree and its fruit. And this tree seems different than the Law. Adam doesn’t hear anything about all the stuff written about in the Law and the Law mentions nothing about refraining from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Indeed, we can’t even get to the tree because Genesis tells us mankind has been barred from the garden ever since. If God is not capricious, then there must have been something inherently bad about eating from the tree. It could not have been some neutral thing that God decided to throw out as a test, the failure of which meant death.

So what about this fruit? When I’ve listened to sermons about it or read books about it, I hear that Adam’s sin was that he wanted to be as God. That was the lie Satan told them and that he bought. I certainly believe that is true but it is as I’ve pondered the implications of this truth that I’ve been thinking of the ideas I want to share here. For so long, I’ve unconsciously thought about Adam’s fall as a choice, a cataclysmic choice, between good and evil. Adam was given a good and wonderful world to live in but God warned him about this evil thing and Adam chose the evil thing. I suppose this is a natural thought to have because it is what you and I do over and over again every day. We are constantly confronted with choices to do the good we know we ought to do or to do the evil we want to do.

The problem is it seems logical that Adam didn’t even know what evil was! How could he know what evil was if he hadn’t yet eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? If he didn’t know what evil was, how could he do what we do every day, that is, choose evil? It seems to me that the fall was a philosophical step before the sins you and I commit all the time. It was fundamentally different.

It seems to me that Adam did not in fact choose evil over good, rather he chose to choose. In desiring to have the knowledge of good and evil he wanted to make his own decisions instead of taking what was handed to him by God. He would evaluate for himself and chart his own course through the world. This meshes with what I already know about the fall, that Adam wanted to be as God, a god to himself, rejecting the authority of God.

The fascinating thing is that all the muck and pain of the world flowed out of this. God didn’t say you’ll die if you choose poorly (between good and evil). He said you’ll die if choose to choose for yourself. We were never meant to handle that power, we just can’t do it. We don’t have the necessary resources. The tragedy is that Adam wanted to learn about good and evil… and he did, by becoming evil and loosing the goodness he enjoyed. Mankind wanted to take the steering wheel and we wrecked the world.

So where does that leave us? It seems in a big jam. A large chunk of the world is living life making choices regardless of right and wrong, but based solely on whatever they happen to want. Another chunk is keenly aware of the fact we’re an evil wreck (this chunk is at least closer to the right direction than the first) but is generally failing as it tries desperately to choose good. I can remember many years of my life struggling with sweat and tears to choose the good I knew I ought to do over the evil I wanted to do. Sometimes I chose better but so often I failed miserably. At no point, though, did I feel anywhere close to successful.

It’s exhausting trying to hack your way through the jungle of life by your own reckoning and under your own steam. I know so many ‘good’ people who are trying to do the same thing. They’re hacking their way along, periodically climbing a tree to survey the land. They’re critically evaluating the options, weighing the pros and cons, picking the good route. They read the Bible and decide they like this part and this part, but not that part. That just isn’t how a loving God would be (as I understand it, of course) so it must not be true. They select the desirable values of other religions, of humanism, of charity. And yet the world is still a mess and we still can’t get it right.

It’s fascinating that we’ve jacked it all up not because we choose poorly but because we demand to choose. It grates at our soul that we should let Another call the shots. And yet that is the only way we’ll ever get back. Of us all, only One has ever done it right. When Jesus walked among us and was tempted (in every way we are, according to the Bible), he did it right where we did it wrong. He didn’t just “choose well”, he refused to choose. He deferred to His Father in Heaven instead. He always deferred to his Father. It’s all over the gospels.

I’ve read that on the walls of the United Nations Building in New York there is a text from Isaiah 2:4, “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” A few comments. Despite the UN and our high hopes, the world doesn’t look like this. We are still killing each other wholesale. Second, the first part of this verse was left out. It says, “And He (God) will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples.” Apparently the text was a gift to the United Nations from the Soviet Union, a militantly atheistic society. The world still trying to choose well and make the world good but we’re still trying to do it on our own terms. We’re still failing.

My last observation is maybe the most difficult. It seems that often the church and Christian culture moves contradictory to this truth. We write books and tell people arguments and validations and evidences for the truth and goodness of the Gospel of Jesus and compare it to the insanity and worthlessness and futility of the world. While I think this is right and good, it is what we do next that seems crazy. We then ask a fallen world to evaluate these two and choose the Gospel of Christ. We ask them to choose to accept Jesus as their personal savior. Do we not ask them to munch on the same fruit that killed us in the first place?

So where does that leave us? Well, if you’ve read this far, you’re probably begging me to wrap it up. In short, I think the answer is to surrender to God, but we not capable of that surrender. A world history of human choosing has proven that. God has to do it for us. I’ve been wrestling with that for the last seven years and I suspect I’ll be wrestling for as many years as the Lord gives me in this life. For now, I’ll let smarter people dig through that.

Paul

Nathan and I have had too much fun since we have been back.  At the beginning of June, we met up with some great college friends.  We are all at least working on our second child, so there were lots of little ones to play with.  At one point there were 6 moms and 11 kids (counting the 3 babies in the bellies).  It was so great talking “mommy” with others and watching Nathan play with others.  I learned some valuable lessons about discipline and how to incorporate God into your every day routines.  I truly appreciate you girls and am thankful for all of the Godly woman in my life. 

Nathan loves the beach and the water.  We have been there several times and he loves being in the water and playing in the sand.

Nathan and I are headed to Dallas next week we will staying all over the place, so I hope to see a bunch of you.  I will email out the cell phone number that I will have soon or email me if you don’t get it.

We miss you too Paul!  Read below to see the Paul’s perspective on the other side of the world.  We are praying for dada and his patients too. 

love, becca

Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks since the family left. The missionary staff has shifted too. Dr. Duane Anderson, the orthopedic surgeon, and his wife, Jackie, have gone back to the States for a couple of months. Dr. Sharon Morad, the obstetrician/gynecologist, is away for a couple months in other parts of Africa learning new gynecologic surgery and boning up on pediatric care. In their stead we have two visiting doctors and one of their wives. Dr. Bob Greene and his wife Elaine are here to fill in for the Anderson’s. Bob is an orthopedic surgeon with a lot of missionary experience. Elaine is teaching Jackie’s English classes. Both of them are spending about a year divided between the various PAACS hospitals teaching orthopedic surgery. Also, Dr. Jim Adams, a family practice physician, is filling in for Sharon with the labor and delivery ward. Jim has also been helping a lot with the residency and has been scrubbing into the OR providing help.

I’ve really enjoyed having these visitors here. Their deep walks with God have inspired and encouraged me and it’s been a pleasure getting to know them, rubbing shoulders with them and learning from them. God continually amazes me how He sends blessings in many and varied ways.

We’ve been trying to care for some really sick people lately. One 13 year-old boy came in with a bowel obstruction and was initially operated on by the residents. He didn’t really ‘turn the corner’ and became progressively worse. Two days ago we took him back to the operating room and found an abdomen full of intestinal juice. There were four areas of dead small intestine with huge holes. I have no idea what caused this… many of my medical experiences here have been quite humbling. He was so sick and his bowel so questionable that we just removed the obviously dead stuff and left the ends of intestine tied off. We temporarily closed his abdomen and took him back to our recovery room to resuscitate him. This morning I took him back to the OR and, after confirming the bowel still looked OK, sewed all of his intestines back together. We’ve been praying for him every day now, multiple times a day really. God has kept him alive so far and I’m praying fervently that he will pull through. I’m going to have to start feeding him soon because he was rather malnourished when he arrived in the first place and it’s been too long since he’s had any nourishment. What I wouldn’t give for some TPN (IV nutrition) from back at Baylor!

We admitted an 18 year-old man this afternoon with probably the worst abdomen I’ve ever examined. He had developed abdominal distension and failure to pass anything ‘from down below’ for 12 hours. He was extremely anemic, his heart rate was really high, we couldn’t measure a blood pressure, he was making no urine and his abdomen was hugely distended. Amazingly, though, he was awake and alert and talking to us. When I pushed on his abdomen, I could hardly believe it. In the last seven years, I’ve pushed on a lot of abdomens but nothing compared with this. It was like pushing on a solid rubber mannequin, no give at all. We began pouring fluid into him and began the ever-painful process of trying to find blood donors. I talked with the anesthetist and, despite his horrible condition, we insisted on operating because his incredibly tight abdomen was probably impeding his blood return to his heart and adversely affecting his heart function. We put him to sleep and opened him up to be greeted by a smell that literally made us gag. Massively distended loops of black, dead, stinking intestine glared at us. Further exploration revealed that most of his small intestine was dead, having twisted around on its blood supply, strangling itself. We did find enough small intestine at the ‘upstream’ end that might potentially survive and provide enough nutrient absorption to hopefully let him live. We quickly removed the obviously dead stuff and, once again, sewed off the ends remaining. Again, we temporarily closed his abdomen and started the resuscitation process. I don’t know. He looks pretty bad. We’ve been praying for him too and it will be God’s mercy and healing if he survives until tomorrow when I plan to take him back and have a second look.

Unfortunately, I could go on. There are lots of sick people trying to die in our ICU. Getting blood for patients has been a problem ever since I’ve been here. We are having the first hospital blood drive this Friday to try and adequately stock a supply of blood for our patients. Ultimately, we need patient’s families to donate but sometimes they are unwilling and, even if they are willing, they may not be able to give enough. Our prayer is that having a small blood bank will help this. We have another critically ill woman who came in yesterday after giving birth at home. It had been three days and the placenta still had not come out. The umbilical cord was still hanging out. Unfortunately she was now thoroughly sick and had become septic. We managed to get the thing out after much effort but she’s looking pretty shaky right now. Her blood count was still low after getting a unit from her husband. Being O-positive, I was compatible with her so I gave one as well. This is the fourth unit I’ve given in the last eleven months. I don’t know for sure how much is ‘safe’ to give but I feel fine and the patients sure as heck need it more than me. As an aside, by the way, I will confide and advise you to not give two units at one time. You will feel like road kill. But, if you think you’re invincible too, at least don’t go play volleyball right afterwards.

I’ve been reflecting on my time here and what I’m going to say to people when I go home to visit. It’s going to be challenging. I’m very thankful that God led me here. It’s been hard but I’ve learned so much. I find myself thinking more than ever about my heavenly Father, about how much I love Him, about how much He loves me and about how much I long to be with Him, face to face. I have never before thought so much about heaven or longed so much for Christ’s return. In a sense, the world seems paler, its grip on me looser. Bear in mind, though, by pale I refer to its promises and enticements. At the same time, though, I am more appreciative and delighted than ever in life and the gifts God has lavished on us during our sojourn here in this land that is not our home. I suppose it’s like many things, that they are most lovely when held in the proper perspective. God is plenty big and wonderful enough to be held first and leave lots of room for joy in the blessings He gives which should always rate below Him.

I miss my family and can’t wait to see them again but they are doing great in Galveston. I can’t believe God is blessing me with a daughter. He is amazing. Sorry for not writing enough, I’m trying to improve that area.

Paul

It’s A Girl!!!

I can’t believe it, we finally know who is in there.  We are so excited about the healthy baby girl who will be joining us in a little over 2 months.  I had an ultrasound today and the doctor said he can never be 100% sure with girls, but this is a textbook shot of a little girl bottom!

Paul and I decided a while ago on a girl name, but we were going back and forth on the boy names.  So now we know that Lydia Ann is who we have been praying for all this time. 

Lydia:

^“13On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. ¹⁴One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. ¹⁵When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. ‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord,’ she said, ‘come and stay at my house.’ And she persuaded us………..⁴⁰After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left.”      

~Acts 16:13-15, 40

Ann:

My mother’s middle name.

Lydia Ann, we pray that God will use you.  that you will be a worshiper of Him.  that you will be an encourager.  both are traits of the Lydia of Acts 16 and my mother Patricia Ann Mayeux.

How can a blog titled “Reflective Thoughts” be two sentences long?  Well, they aren’t my direct thoughts, but I certainly agree…Click here to hear my mothers perspective of where we live after visiting Soddo for a few weeks.

This is a blog I (Becca) have been thinking about since I left for Ethiopia, 10 months ago…As I sit here in the A/C drinking Dr. Pepper and eating Cheetos, I have the perspective I need to put this into words. 

Things Ethiopia doesn’t have and the acceptable substitute: