The Start of the Blog

Hi, friends!!
Here it is... my very first real blog post!! Below are a few little blogs that I wrote last year when I attempted to blog, but I have finally decided that it's time to really blog.
Now for a little background on me and my sudden urge to blog... :o)
The last three years have been wonderful... I have had a wonderful job working with great people in an ER (and getting great stories out of it, like the college guys reenacting Braveheart with steak knives and the patient who tried to steal an ambulance :), I traveled to see dear friends scattered all over the globe, I developed an insatiable addiction to swing dancing, and I renovated and decorated an adorable, cozy cottage.

All that is about to change (not the wonderfulness, just all those details :o).

I'm embarking on a new adventure and following God to Haiti for a year!! I'm so excited to join God in the work that He is doing there! Here is how my life is about to be quite different:

~Job- I will be working in a 26-bed hospital that serves 100,000 people. I will take call on a rotating schedule with 2-4 Haitian doctors, and the most common ailments are HIV, malaria, high blood pressure problems (stroke/eclampsia), and machete lacerations. And I get to work in the only 2 rooms on the island with AC-- the 2 small surgical suites-- woohoo! :o)

~Travel- I will be living on the island of LaGonave, which is located in the bay of Haiti. It's only 38 miles long, but because there are no paved roads, it takes 8 hours to travel from one end to the other. To get there, I will fly into Port-au-Prince, take a 2 hour ride in the back of a pick up truck, get a 2 hour tour across the sea, and arrive at the crystal clear waters of our boat dock on La Gonave. The language of Haiti is Creole, which is a fun dialect of French and I'm working hard at it (Sa ou genyen diarre? do you have diarrhea? ;).

~Fun stuff- There will be 3 other young adult missionaries from the States with me in Haiti, and we're hoping to start a small group for young adults at the Haitian church. Few people have electricity, so most people are free to do stuff once the sun sets (at 6:30pm), leaving an awesome opportunity for us to engage in fellowship on the missions compound (which has electricity until 9pm). Also, there is a huge desire to learn Spanish on the island, and I'm hoping to start a weekly Spanish club for practice and relationship-building, since they can't practice Spanish like we can in the States (by going to a local Mexican restaurant or watching the Spanish channel on tv). I'm also excited about visiting the local orphanage, full of adorable children who have smiles so warm they could melt chocolate.

~Housing- I am excited to get to live on the missions compound with a bunch of great missionaries!! There are several families who will be there and 3 other young adults. There is very little prepackaged foods on the island, so we do have a kitchen and employ 3 cooks for when teams come down for short term trips from the States. I hear I can even get one of them to bake me a loaf of bread every week, as there's no where to buy it! But they do have peanutbutter and delicious mangoes in the open air markets where I'll shop-- I'm excited!!

I'm going through Global Partners, the missions arm of the Wesleyan church (i currently attend FWC/ALIVE... www.fwcalive.com) and the link to my page with them is www.wesleyan.org/gp/mdirectory2/WM29-0070.  I'm in the process of raising the last $7,500 out of $27,000 that I need to go, and I have been so blessed to see how the Lord is providing!! God has been bringing people into my life--without me doing anything-- who have been huge supporters and promoters. One of my nurses approached me about speaking at her church, where the pastor gave me all of this normal sermon time, I was informed at the last minute that I should give an alter call (first one EVER), and a girl got saved!!! I was approached by another coworker, who wants me to speak on her uncle's local Christian radio station!! God sent me wonderful renters for my cozy cottage, and I never advertised it!!

It has been an incredible summer, and I'm so excited to see what's next! I'm hoping to leave for Haiti by the end of the year, and I would love to have you share the journey with me!!

Ready or not, here I blog...
~diane

So much of life can be described by "hurry up and wait." Sometimes I wish that my life were a bit like a movie-- all the exciting parts are there and ya can fast forward thru the boring ones. And yet, most of the living goes on the in the simple day-to-day operations. I am trying to learn to be thankful for the lulls and the "normal" days. In them, sparkle gems of God's love and traces of His fingerprints. Today, I got to see a little of that in the glorious budding of the trees in our neighborhood. I picked my favorites (heehee... or maybe i just picked the ones that i could actually reach :), and they now sit in a lovely pitcher on my dresser to remind me that God cares for the lilies. He has not forgotten me. I just read a sweet lil devo that ended with the words, "Our God is the living God of the Heavens, and even when He delays it is part of His goodness." So, even when I feel that nothing is happening (no sign of a future house or a future knight or a future international adventure on the horizon), this, too, is part of knowing Him. The normal, everyday life is a gift from Him. And I don't want a fast forward button to miss that! :o)

Good Start (not like the baby formula)

Today was a good day... full of good friends, good food, good deeds, good ideas, good intentions... Seems like a good day to start a new blog. :o)

First, I celebrated finishing a 70 hour work week by sleeping in. That was good... very good. :o) Then, I went to lunch with a good friend, Janel, and we had a good conversation. It's so good to live life on purpose, and from time to time, to have deep conversations with friends about how to do that. Today was one of those chats. And it can be so scary sometimes to live the way that you know God is calling you to. A life of openness and obedience and abiding in Christ. A life that makes Him smile... o yeah, and it's good, too. ;)

This is where the good intentions come in... I intended for this to be the first day of eating healthy. (i'm no longer calling it a "diet" cuz that word is less fun..."healthy eating" has a much nicer ring to it than "bikini-body-for-may-vacation-diet", but the turquoise polka dot bikini will still hang from the back of my door as a reminder of the upcoming beach trip :) I intended to try this calcium-enriched diet that I read in a fun, classy book called How the Rich Get Thin. It made me feel rich to read it and get recommendations of all the places in NYC where you can eat and stay on her diet plan. So, in light of that, I was going to have a salad topped with grilled shrimp at lunch. Which, I am glad to say, I totally did... but then I also had a ton of yummy chips with artichoke dip and a criossant. So much for good intentions, but hooray for good food! :o) Random side note: she recommends water with a twist of lemon or lime in it. I like lemon water, so I thought I'd branch out and try lime water... not quite as delightful as I had hoped. Good lesson. :o)

I had a sweet chance to serve my mom today. She hurt her back lifiting a huge bag of fertilizer, so I got to work on being a servant of all by cleaning bathrooms for her today. It's sweet to get to serve while I spend my last few months at home. I'm on a quest for a little cottage that I can move into this summer. The Lord seems to be opening doors for me change my address. :o) My dear friend Joanna is moving back to be my roommate before we embark on our travels around the globe for Jesus (her possibly to Europe and me to Haiti). In light of the current housing market and awesome mortage rates, it might be a really wise time to buy a house. And it would be so cool to actually do the wise financial thing and get to be in the market at the right time (i feel like i don't usually make really wise financial decisions; it'd be cool to start :)! I'm still praying my way through it, but I have my eye (and prayers :) on two cute little mill houses. I love the thought of taking a sad little old cottage and turning it into a bright, cheery home with a little elbow grease and TLC.

Some random good ideas: I love to travel and have adventures, and I recently came across some fun ideas for trips! Below is a great website for swing dancing around the world:
http://www.swingoutoftown.com/
How fun would it be to lindy hop your way through Scotland?!
I also found a school in southern France that offers French lessons in the morning and surfing lessons in the afternoon. Tres chic! (and i don't know how to say "surf's up" yet in French :). You can find that here:
http://www.bls-frenchcourses.com/course-surf-GB.html

All in all, it's been a good day off. I think it might be a good time to watch a movie, and I hope that you're having a good day!