So Madam. You want to go to the hospital?

Its not fair.
I've revolutionized my diet, am taking vitamins regularly, work out on a consistent basis, avoid junk food and drinks like the plague, and get seven hours of sleep regularly.
And I still have gotten sick TWICE this semester!
Last semester I did good, only was down with a cold one day. But this semester... blech!
So yesterday I got up for our 8:30 Pancakes and Bible study three hallways over and one floor up. It consists of two Ukrainians and a Cameroonian and then me. Oh, and Sam the Texan, husband to one of the Ukrainians, who shows up for the pancakes and then does his devotions in the bedroom while we do a Bible study. As I was getting ready I was hit with some nausea, but shook it off. But I wasn't really hungry at breakfast.
Finished Bible study and got ready to go to an outreach with a couple buddies from school. While we were driving I was hit with more intense nausea and then when we got out of the car had to take a minute getting out when my stomach cramped up.
But we filled the campus of the local secular university full of posters and sidewalk-chalk announcements for an upcoming event. "Silent no more," women who've had abortions give their testimonies and then information is shared about the local crisis pregnancy center. I wish I could go this Tuesday, but I have to work :-(
So we finished up and drove back to campus and I went back to my apartment. I was trying to gear up for some homework and realized that I needed to take a nap; NOW.
I'm not really a nap person, but I figured that staying up till o'dark:thirty every thursday night the last few weeks for J-term stuff, taking five classes and working 15 hours a week might have something to do with it, and might as well nap rather than get sick later.
I was out cold for two hours. When I got up... kaboom! lost lunch.
Now I've had the flu before, but I don't remember being that violently sick that close together in a two-hour time period, at least not for a loooong time. My room mate found me laying on the floor of the bathroom (was a little more comfortable than my bed at that point) and called our Didi.
'Didi' means 'elder sister' in Hindi, and is what we call our neighbor who lives directly upstairs. She is Tamil from India married to a Bengali, and is the mother hen of whatever single ladies come into her circle of influence. She also happens to work at the same coffee shop as my room mates and I, and its looking like she and her husband will be my supervisors for my internship this summer as well.
SO down stairs Didi came, and her entering words as she walked into my bedroom were, "So Madam. What are you doing? You want to go to the hospital?"
NO I do not want to go to the hospital!
"Oh hey Didi. I don't think I am that sick yet..."
"Ok then you want me to call security?"
I gave her a funny look. "Didi, security doesn't have medical training."
"No but they will call ambulance."
"An ambulance? I don't think that is necessary..."
Now i have pale skin but apparently the frequency of my getting sick was turning me from pale to pasty and it was concerning, as was the frequency and intensity of my getting sick. However. The last time I had gone in to an ER I was there for about twelve hours and there had been nothing close to an accurate diagnosis from that particular medical institution. And it was expensive. So I really didn't want to repeat the incident, but both Didi and my room mate were sure I had food poisoning or something terrible like that. I didn't know what I had. SO I called my old R.A. who is a nurse and had had food poisoning at one point when I was still living on her hall.
She informed me that I probably had the latest bug that has been going around. The main thing was to make sure that my temperature didn't get too high and to make sure that I stayed hydrated.
Now I had already asked my friend from the Bible study if she could pick up some 7-up while she was out and about that night, but I didn't know when she would arrive. So Didi sent her husband to run get me some, and returned from her apartment with a little orange measuring spoon with Tamil script on it to whip up some kind of 'electrolyte' drink.
She and my room mate explained it to me before they mixed it up. You mix about 1/2 tsp salt with 1 tsp sugar in a glass about 12 ounces and chug it down, then lay on your side.
I was sipping it, because my R.A. had told me to not take any large amounts of fluids in for a while as my stomach probably couldn't handle it.
"What is this, Madam? You don't like our Indian drink?" Didi asked in mock-crossness when she saw me simply sipping. "Here, let me put some cheese on it. Americans will eat anything with cheese. I'll put cheese on coffee-grounds and they will eat it."
"But I'm just supposed to sip liquids -" I protested
"No, you drink it fast. I want whole glass done immediately."
Now, she may be only 5 ft 1 inch in height if that, but it was five feet of determination and I wasn't in any kind of mood to disagree with her.
"Even if you throw half of glass out, half will still be there and you will not get dehydrated." she continued. SO I chugged. It was cold, but good. And to be honest, I'd actually prefer that treatment to the 7-up and crackers, and then the Campbell canned chicken noodle soup I remember from growing up.
She had a thermometer and took my temperature which came out normal. "I think fever is afraid of you." she said smiling as she returned the thermometer to its case.
Bhaiya, Didi's husband (Bhaiya means older brother in Hindi) arrived with the 7-up and they poured me a glass of that as well which I took a sip of then lay down. Didi prayed over me and then left with multiple orders that if I were to get sick again to simply give her a missed call and she would be down in a minute. As she left, she noticed my down comforter.
"What! Don't put that on her, she will surely get fever with that. How are you sleeping with such heavy quilt, madam?" She shook her head indignantly.
"Ok now you have two liters of your 7-up from my husband, and I want them both gone when I check on you tomorrow."
Apparently Indian home remedies are the way to go, because I was out cold until 3:30 AM. Didi came back to check on me but I was asleep. "With your mouth open sleeping so peacefully." Ha. Great.
She came over this afternoon and said several times she was very relieved to see me smiling and feeling better. However:
"You Americans... only two colors: pasty white, or red like lobster. You don't keep any sun in your skin."
Well, its true; I am very fair in complexion and I'm either a smidgen darker than as pale as you can get or sun burnt.
She also was not too pleased with the fact that I had only drank 2/3 of one liter of 7-up. "Yes its very nice that you have them, but what good will they do you if you are not drinking them?"
Good point.
They also prescribed black tea - no milk or sugar, just straight black. It actually tasted good that way in my present health condition.
Didi stopped by later with some soup she had made after checking with her friend who is a nurse from India about what I can and cannot eat.
"I made just with salt. You are not to take any pepper, otherwise will be too much. And if this is too heavy than you are just to take cracker."

So I have my own personal Indian medical crew. As humbling as it is to have Didi walk in and see my messy room with me looking and feeling like crap, its been a huge blessing to have her stop in and cluck and fuss and bustle and comment.

~Princess Ouch~

He he.... woops. Henna

(warning to any guys who might be reading: This particular post contains extensive information regarding fashion and girls' rendition of how their hair looks. Continue at your own risk) My room mate was able to go home for a while and brought back Henna as part of my gift. And I've always known that Henna was used not just to paint crazy patterns on your hands and feet (that freaks out fellow students, who at first think you've burnt your hand terribly... and then immediately afterwards ask if you have gotten a tatoo. And it also starts an intriguing conversation with the barista at the coffee shop down the road, who has tatoos in Hebrew and is fluent in modern Hebrew and is interested in the fact that you speak Hungarian. Not that any of this has happened to me...) but can also be used on one's hair to give it a wonderful, silky feel as it is moisturized and nourished. I also knew that it tended to give one's hair certain hues pertaining to the individual applying it. Now, you see, my sister has used Henna before on her long blond hair. And it made it slightly darker, a little copperish, but very attractive. Add to that her incredible tan and I thought that it looked amazing. However. my hair is not my sisters. Now I'd gotten strawberry blond highlights a few months ago and they've grown out and faded. And my hair has just in general been driving me nuts, 'cause the style is grown out of it and its thin and wispy and if I don't do it just so its wispy and crazy and bumps up in one spot making my skull look square-ish and my bangs stick straight up or lump in a particular direction making my prominent forehead resemble that of a Klingon's from Star Trek, and on the left side swoops gracefully in and on the left side flips out, making me look like I'm generally traveling in a left-to-right direction at all times and my hair has followed suit.
Yeah my hair was driving me nuts as you can tell.
Now, if I keep my hair ridiculously moisturized and style it for a half hour then it looks fine. The exact same at all times, but at least not an eyesore.




(note to girls reading this: Now is NOT the part where you all swoop in as supportive gal friends and go overboard with affirmations on physical appearance, because I'm being rather tongue-in-cheek with my self deprecation. It keeps me humble. I like how I look and have a good self image. Chill.)
SO... Henna. It has moisturizing qualities. It makes hair silky. It prevents breakage and "the falling out of hair" as the packages says.
Voila.
My room mate helped me mix it; you make a paste that in texture resembles chocolate mousse and in appearance resembles something you'd find in the back field after the cows had been there. And it smells very earthy. Not a bad smell, just earthy.
My friend came over and goofed off with her feet while I applied it to my hair. She laughed and said it looked like I had gotten in a mud fight and lost. ;-)
SO I left it in for the prescribed three hours after that; you CAN leave it in for four hours, if you'd like.
Now, while I left it in, I wasn't watching my hair. I left it unsupervised while I tried to figure out Microsoft Word on my computer, talked to my mom on the phone, made dinner, cleaned a little...
And then I looked in the mirror.
Now, it just looked LIGHTER at that point. I could see there was some... shall we say... some slight changes in the color tone of my hair, and a lot in the highlights of it. But that was fine. It was driving me nuts anyway.



So I rinsed it. And I didn't think it was that bad when my hair is all dark and full of water and doesn't resemble whatever color it is supposed to be at that point in time. But I could see rather vibrant red on my scalp. I just figured that was because Henna makes your SKIN so red, but for whatever reason, as the chemical make up of hair and skin are different, my hair wouldn't be THAT red... so then I dried it.



And... you remember on Anne of Greene Gables when she dies her hair to turn it a beautiful raven brown, because she doesn't like that its red, and it turns out green? Well my hair wasn't a raven black, but now it was definitely no longer any kind of washed out blond.




As my other room mate said, I look like Cheryl from the old Archie comics. Which is fine, a new unique look for a new semester that will hopefully be unique in a GOOD way. However, I am just not sure I have the wherewithal to carry t he look and reputation that comes with Miss Cheryl Blossom at this school...



SO I'm a redhead now. Actually its more of a brunette. I don't have any other really good pictures of me yet, because I rinsed it out at 11 pm last night, and today is Saturday and I am not going anywhere or making myself look like anything other than a bed-head college student with too much homework to read.
But I'll try to post some better pictures soon.
The other thing is that when you put the Henna on your hair, it starts to dry right away. SO you really have to know what you are doing to get it all even. AND I had the washed out highlights in my hair, AND as I said my hair strands are thin but there is a lot of it. So it was rather difficult to get the same amount of Henna distributed evenly all over my hair. So the 'under hairs' down by my neck are still more brown, its just the 'top hairs' that have gotten very patriotic for Valentine's day. ;-)
Oh well. I'm a unique person all the way around, and now my looks just prove it. ;-)

~Princess Ouch~

Speech for Missions class

Well I gave my speech yesterday at Missions class. A couple people came up afterwards and told me it was really good. So I thought I'd share with you all. :-)
It was actually a group project, and there was three in my group including myself. Alyssa gave the introduction and talked about Africa and Scott talked about South America. I talked about Asia and gave the conclusion. Our speech was entitled, "The dissapearing Center." See if you can figure out what it's on.

"Asia: Honestly, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Asia is bugs. Usually big ones with a poisonous stinger on one end and really big painful chompers on the other end. Then I think of high humidity, huge rice paddies, larg rural areas and very short people. In actually fact Asia is home to some of the largest rural areas in the world, such as Seoul and Hong Kong. Japan hosts the world's largest city, Tokyo. Cities in Asia today are usually very familiar with Christianity, and the world's largest churches are found in Asia.
While this is the case, Christianity is the majority religion in five of the six continents and Asia is not one of those five. This is partially due to it's huge land mass and very diverse people groups.
South Asia alone is home to 1/4 of the world's unsaved population. The pacific rim has 350 unreached people groups with populations over 100,000. That's not even touching the people groups with smaller populations. 150 of these large people groups are not even being engaged right now by missionaries (at least according to the Baptist Missions convention)
On the flip side, the Philippines are 93% christian. The Chinese church is experiancing phenominal growth. South Korea is 31.6% Christian, and about 12,000 koreans are serving as overseas missionaries.
An interesting thing about Christianity in Korea: Almost all of the pioneer missionaries during the 19th century, when missions first took effect in that country, were American. In 1890 a Presbyterian named John L. Nevius began the "Nevius method' of Evangelism. This method called for "Self Governing, Self Supporting, and Self Propogating" Churches. This made the Korean churches almost virtually independant of foriegn support.
Another helpful dynamic of these American missionaries is that they avoided using an imported word for God. The Roman Catholic missionaries who had arrived earlier tried using a Chinese term for God and this made the Koreans resentful and suspicious of worshiping what they viewed as a foreign Diety. The Americans used a Korean word, Hananim, for God, and this made the Koreans much more receptive and enthusiastic about the gospel.
The fruit of these American missionaries is that today Seoul Korea hosts the largest mainline denominational churches in the world.
The effects of the Asian church on the world today is 1. they've given the world great Evangelists and ministers such as Watchman Nee, K.P. Johannan, and Ravi Zecharias.
2. The Asian church is consulted heavily in major international Christian conferences.

Conclusion: So what do we do with all this information? How does it apply to us today, here, in this classroom?
First, we need to realize that Global Christianity is a testimony to Missionary faithfullness, and try to become that kind of Missionary.
To become this kind of missionary we need to realize that effective missionaries don't do the work, the Holy Spirit does. We're just His vessals.
We also need to realize the very important fact that WE ARE ALL CALLED.
Keith Greene was a hippie in the 1970's who experianced a very interesting conversion and started ministering to the hippies and young people of the 70's and 80's. He said:
"There is a command in the Bible that says, "Go ye into all the nations and preach the Gospel unto every creature and make disciples of men." We like to think 'Well, that was for the disciples. You know that was for the apostles. That's for the Missionaires. That's for humanitarians. That's for real Christians. I mean really, they're so spiritual they can't stay in society, so they've got to go overseas and bury themselves in some tribe somewhere down in the Amazon." But I'll tell you what, folks, the world isn't being won today because we're not doing it. It's our fault. This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth, and nowhere in the world is the Gospel so plentiful as in the United States! Nowehere. I don't want to see us stand before God on that day an dsay, 'Gut God, I didn't hear you call me." Here's something for you to chew on. You didn't need to hear a call - you're already called! In fact, if you stay home from going into all nations, you had better be able to say to God, 'You called me to stay home God. I know that as a fact." Unless God tells you otherwise, you are called."
One thing that is important to realize, though, is that reaching out to all nations includes our own. A lot of times we think that if the gospel has been preached in that area it's fine and we don't have to worry about sharing our faith.
I was talking with my friend from India and he told me the story about an American Missionary in India. They had set up their headquarters in one of the cities and were reaching out to rural areas. One night God woke up the son of this missionary and said, 'Go to the Hindu temple." So the young man went and was watching behind a pillar, and he saw this old woman start worshipping this idol of a cow. And she was passionately worshipping this idol more ferverently than he had seen some Christians in the church worship. And started grieving in his spirit and praying, "Lord, how can she do this? It's an idol made of stone!" And God answered, 'Because no one told her the Truth."
"How can she not know the Truth, God? We have our headquarters right here near this temple!"
"Someone didn't obey. She has never heard the gospel preached to her."
So even when we think we've got it covered, there are always more fields to be harvested.
Also, Global Christianity owes it's survival to the indiginous churches and believers in the third world.
The persecuted church prays for the American church, because their walk with God and their world is black and white. Ours is very grey. For them, it's either follow God 100% or live in paganism. For us, it's much easier to integrate social norms and unchristian practices into our lives. So they pray for us.
There was a community in India who heard about Communism in Romania, and so they prayed that God would make Communism fall so that Romania could start sending out missionaries. Well about ten years after they started praying Communism fell and a young Romanian woman was sent to Bible college in Hungary. She ended up going on a mission trip to India and went to the same community who had been praying for her country and people. When they found out where she was from they got emotional and said, "You are the first fruits of our prayers. We have been praying for God to send you to us, because you in Romania can get spiritual training that we can't, and we need you to come teach us."
Christians in the third world also keep the peace and reach out to those that others won't. Christians in Bethlehem aren't accepted socially by either the Jews or the Muslims and want to leave. But neither the Jews nor the Muslims want the Christians to leave as they act as a social buffer between the two groups that hate each other.
Also, Christians in the third world restore Supernatural expectations to the church. My friend Joy from India said that Africans are very spiritually aware in their paganism. When they become Christians, they are able to live in Christian spiritual authority over both the Seen and the Unseen worlds.

Application for American Christians: A quote from the book (Changing the face of World Missions)
"As the Church grows globally, the diversity and numbers of believers doing ministry 'from all nations, to all nations' requrie Cooperation, Consideration, and Consultation. This is the only way to bring the incredible resources of the international Christian Community to bear on the challenges and opportunities abounding today."
Oftentimes, Americans think that we will go into the ministry and do the providing and ministering. We've got it covered, and it's almost a pride thing for us.
I remember this last summer God told me to go to Romania, and I had just barely enough money to cover my costs getting to where I needed to go. But I was going to stay with some missionaries there, and they needed me to help them with food costs, and I didn't have that money so I was afraid that I would be a burden. And God said 'don't worry about it. Go." So I did. And when I first got there, I stayed with my host family for a few days. The night before I left my host mom walked up to me and put something in my hand and said, "This is yours." It turned out to be enough money for me to live on for the next week. And for me it was really humbling, because the AMERICAN was being provided for and supported by the HUNGARIAN PEASANT woman! Many times we think we're the ones supposed to do all the blessing but God wants us to be able to BLESS EACH OTHER.
An insight from my friend in India is that as Americans we often go on mission trips with a lot of suitcases. In these suitcases is plenty of supplies to support our comfort zone. We then do the job and go home. Joy said that "the biggest blessing wuld be an American with only ONE suitcase who said, 'I'm not going back'"
We like our comfort zone. Both the book and Joy said that the biggest need for missionaries is NOT in a comfortable or safe place. Joy said, "The places the Gospel is needed most today are places with no electricity."
His dad has a church in one of the cities in India, and once he went on an Evangelist visit up to one of the villages to the north. And one night he shared the Gospel story the cheif of the village walked up to him and said, "Your God cannot be true. How is it that if your God is sovereign, you are JUST NOW telling us this after 2,000 years!!" And it was really convicting to this pastor because he had lived only a few hours from these people with his large church and they were just NOW hearing about the gospel.
An insight from a young pastor in Romania was that we need to redifine Evangelism methods. "Not just preaching in the church and to the many living dead in the church, but to GO OUT and LIVE OUT Christ." We need to be bringing new believers into the Church and discipling them.
Another thing as Americans we need to be careful that we don't let our culture dictate or ruin potential ministry opportunitys. My friend Silvana is a missionary to the Gypsies in Romania and she said,
"About that American thing: you are American, you can't change that. But what is good in you, you have the heart and attitude to let aside your Americanism, and to allow the Lord to do His will in you. It's nothing bad to be an American girl, it is bad when this American girl walks in her flesh and seeks first her interests. Romanian girls can be the same, the same problem but under a different color. Everything is about the relationship with God and how much we allow Him to change us into His image and not into Romanians (or Americans."

So in a nutshell, what the book and the testimonies from our brothers and sisters overseas are saying is this:
No one culture is less than or greater than any other. As iron sharpenes iron, the global Church needs the checks and balances we give each other through outside perspective and insight gained by growing up in a different culture and country.

A man named David Brainard Woodward said,

"To undertsand our mission to witness and our mission to welcome our fellow men to the love of Christ, we must start with the source of missions. They do not begin with men: their origin is found in the heart of God. When we know what He intendsd to do, we can believe and work for the accomplishment of His will, the coming of His kingdom." "

So that was my speech. In case you couldn't tell, the "Dissapearing Center" is the evaporation of Christianity's center in Europe and America, but how it is becoming a Global religion.
Alright well now my hands are hurting from typing all this up, and it's cold outside (I guess fall decided to show up) and I have class in thirty six minutes, and I only had a molasses cookie for breakfast. Hey, I'm in college. ;-D So going to go get something that counts as nutrition to eat and then going to class. Yay.

Cheers,

Princess Ouch.