Friday, May 18, 2012

Friday was a bit different.....




The day started off well, at about 5:30-ish.....then it started going downhill from there.  I was moving a fan in our room when one of the wires on the back gave way and either it pulled my finger in it or it allowed my finger to be caught by the fan blade.  So, when Heather said, "something got caught in the fan," it took me a minute to reply and say, "yeah, it was my fingers."  Then, she graciously informed me that she saw blood, which made us grab up the bottled water and run for the shower to clean it out.  As Heather was so sweetly helping me to clean my wound, she informed me that she doesn't do blood.  So, while Megan was grabbing the first aid kit, I asked if Brooke or Mike were already up because I figured a mom or dad would be good at something like this....don’t ask, but this seemed like great logic at the time.  There were a few other moments thrown in there in the following 15 minutes, but I’m not sure that everyone involved wants them posted on a blog, so I’ll let those slide for now.  Brooke did come to help me finish cleaning out my wound and then came the conversation/debate of, “do I go to a doctor.....in a village in India......3 hours drive from any major city in the country?”  Well, I've never had stitches as a result of injury....only surgery, so this kind of freaked me out a little more.  Again, I thought, “we are about 3 hours away from any major city, in a village in India.....am I sure I want a MD to look at my finger and stitch it up?”  NOPE was the prompt and certain reply.  But, everyone didn’t jump on board as quickly as I did about this not going to the doctor thing.  So, we put some Neosporin (+ pain, by the way) on it and continued to apply pressure to stop the bleeding.  After a while, we bandaged it and wrapped the bandage very tightly to keep it nice and clean.  I even decided to make a $40 phone call back to the states just to get my brother’s opinion....or support, really, for not going to the doctor.  I really just wanted someone in my family to tell me that I wasn’t crazy for not going to the doctor and I knew that I couldn’t talk to my mom or dad.  My mom wouldn’t have been able to rest until she could see me and my finger had already been healed.  My dad, on the other hand, would’ve been a much more interesting conversation, most likely with him wanting to get on a plane to come and find me and make sure that I was OK.  So, I knew Danny was THE person to go to on this one.
I skipped out on the village visit today, thinking that the cleanliness of the multiple layers of exposed matter on my finger was quite important.  I joined the rest of the group at the school, though, to end our time here with a bang. It was a far more emotional time than I had thought it would be, too (the kids just as much as us were sad about our leaving).  The church presented us with shirts and spoke some very, very kind words to us.  We were able to sing a few motion songs with the children and take some pictures before we were allowed to serve them lunch and then head back to the compound where our cars were waiting for us to eat lunch and then begin our journey back to Kolkata.  Of course, we took advantage of a few photo ops during that time and got some great team pictures.
It only took us about 1.5 hrs to get back to Kolkata, which we were all surprised by (including Andrew) since it takes 3 hrs to get to the village??  We still aren't sure how this happened.  We were excited about it, but a little frightened that we were able to make it so far in such a short amount of time.
When we arrived in Kolkata, we had a few minutes to take a “rest” and I took full advantage of the air conditioning and light and sanitation and I re-dressed my wound.  Then, we went to the "new market," which is actually the oldest market in Kolkata, for some shopping.  While we were out, we went to a mall for dinner and we wanted something that was as close to American as we could find.....we settled on Chinese. We were able to meet a new Neverthirst employee, Dianne, who is now living in Kolkata and we were able to talk with her more about her work in India as well as her adjustment since arriving there.
Serving dinner to the kids at the school
What an event-filled, crazy, overwhelming, and emotional day!!!  It is so hard to believe that we’ve already been here for a week and that this is the last night in India, truly, since our flight leaves at 12:50 a.m. on Sunday morning.  It’s very bittersweet, to be honest....it’s HOT in Kakdwip/Kolkata, but I am going to miss those people; I haven’t gotten more than 2.5 hours of sleep at any one time on this trip, but I would be willing to stay for another month to see these kids get a grasp of the true gospel and then to start making disciples!  As hard as this past week has been, I’m almost not ready to board that plane to get back to the US.  I know what awaits me when I get back and I know how quickly I tend to forget these sights and sounds and faces and I don’t want to do that!  I want to pray intentionally for them and I want to be involved in helping them grasp and share the gospel with others.

No comments:

Post a Comment