God at Work today

We went back to the clinic today with little Memory, the 8yr old girl who tested positive for HIV last week.
We went to her house to pick her up and she went inside to change into a nicer dress. She came out onto the step and was trying to reach behind her to zip the rest of the dress up, so I helped her and then told her she looked nice.
The dress was clean but it had a big tear across the sleeve. Her hair had been fixed into sections and looked nice, though when I commented on it later she told Fanny that it hurt her head. I think it was too tight.

They took 3 vials of her blood to get further tests done. To determine her liver function and her levels to know what type of treatment to start her on.
They had to take it out of her hand and her arm and she did not even wince or cry or move. I could not believe it. We tried to talk to her and get her mind off the blood being drawn. I had an extra cookie that I gave her and that seems to help.

We then went back into the doctors office and he said the results would be ready on Saturday. Then he told Fanny and I that the Director of the clinic wanted to speak with us.
We both though, "oh no...".

It is a small private clinic. And so we didn't know if he was going to be asking us alot of questions about the girl or what.
The director wanted to meet us and ask us about the orphan program and what we did. Fanny mostly explained it and then he said that his clinic is run on God's good will and that if we are helping the vulnerable he can not have a good conscience in making a profit off of us. So then he told us to make a list of the 11 children we are helping and bring that in to him. He will then make cards with each child's name and anytime they need to come in, with or without us, they can come and the clinic will only charge us what something is at cost value. The medicine direct at cost, and bloodwork/labs, only what it costs them to process those labs.

We told him thank you! And rejoiced at what God did for us and the children today!

As I was paying the bill in the waiting room I looked over at the TV and saw a nature show that was on. As I watched for a moment I noticed the beautiful scenery and the bears and knew it had to be something from Yellowstone or Montana. Once you have seen that beauty you can easily recognize it!
I looked back at the man attending to my bill and then slowly looked back at the TV and then back to the man.
It is hard to explain what I was feeling, as I stood there for just a couple of minutes. But I will try...

Last night I was having an especially hard time. Things here are just hard. I was missing my dear friends, and my 1115 Tatum Road house. ( Affectionately called Potato Road by Jackson)
We had some people over for dinner and we were mentioning places in America and that the most beautiful place we have lived was Montana.
Earlier in the day Emma found a little photo album we had prepared when we went to Ukraine of the kids and the bedrooms and our house. And then I saw the nice carpet...And the green grass and our house and it made me sad.

We have seen some amazing things here. But the day to day scenery and what I look at now, just doesn't compare. I used to look out my dining room window at the beauty of rolling hills, pastureland, sunsets. Peace and Quiet. Now I look out my dining room window and see some brown grass and a grey concrete wall. And on some nights we hear loud music from a local bar, dogs and other animals barking, cars whizzing past, and even this past week, two car wrecks late at night right on the road we live on. Not quite "peace and quiet".

But these things do not compare with what the Lord has given us to do here.

In Hebrews 11: 24-26 Referring to Moses it says,
" choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God...considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. "

We are getting close enough to the people here to "share" with them in their suffering and affliction. And that is a greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. ( or the treasure, beauty, convenience and ease in America)

So today my Heavenly Dad showed me this and reminded me again of HIS greatness and worthiness. It was a "God moment" as the phrase goes. Where I so clearly knew this was here for that specific reason and He was using it to encourage me.
And with a few glances back and forth to the beauty I saw on the TV screen and then to the face of a little girl and the opportunities all around me, I felt the "Peace and Quiet" once again in my heart and soul.