Blessed and Highly Favored

As my dad would say I am blessed and highly favored. I am overwhelmed by how abundantly God has been blessing me. So many amazing things have happened since i last wrote.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are clinic days. On clinic days starting at 9 am the hospital takes on a good day 600 people who have walked or rode in from surrounding villages. So far on clinic days I have taken blood pressures, weights, observed, and played with kids. The hospital has a lot of student volunteer now from a local trade school so I just try to fill in where every they need me but they usually have things pretty well covered. This is good in a way because I can usually wander where ever I want to. I spend my free time visiting the maternity or peds wards.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are OR days. I have seen lots of awesome things in the OR so far. My first operation was a C-section. God loves me so much. He knew how much I wanted to see a birth and how much I would love it. There is nothing like seeing a baby being born. I am really thinking about becoming a midwife, although I have not seen a natural delivery yet. Hopefully I will see one tomorrow or by the end of the week :-) I am excited just thinking about it. I have seen several other operations most of them were hernias. I am amazed by the miracles God works through surgeons.
Everyday Mon-Fri starts with morning devotionals at 7am (sometimes they are translated into English sometimes they are not but I always like it either way :-) In the mornings after devotional I follow one of the doctors around the hospital from about 7:30 to 9 or 9:30. This is a basic outline of my weekly hospital schedule, i hope it makes sense. I am learning so much at the hospital and its awesome to be around patients, doctors, nurses, and students. I missed that.
So Friday after devotional, rounds, and the clinic for a few hours I went to a village 15 minutes from Nalerigu with a few other short term missionaries. We stayed the night and then walked back to the hospital the next morning. There are two missionaries who are living in the village for 2 weeks so we met up with them their. I know you wont believe this mom but I stayed in a mud house. One of the ones they show on those commercials with the starving children. O by the way I have seen some starving children here too and there are lots of kids with protein deficiencies that have caused their bellies to get distended. Its really sad. Anyways we played with the kids while we were at the village. They all get really excited to see white people. There must have been 75 to 100 kids that followed us around that day. They were all so adorable. We went on a crocodile hunt too but did not find any. That night the women of the village brought us food and they provided rooms for the girls and boys to sleep in. I got to use their bathroom there too it was quite an experience. In the morning we woke up a little before 6 and with in the hour the women brought breakfast to us in our rooms. Everyone in the village was extremely generous. To them we were strangers who pretty much knocked on their door asking for a place to stay, dinner, and breakfast and they willingly provided plenty for us. It was awesome to see such generosity from people so poor. It really makes me realized how greedy I am. My village experience was definitely one I will never forget and would love to do again.
Saturday on our walk back to Nalerigu we decided following the road was too boring for us when there were mountains to discover. Climbing the mountains made an 1.5 hour walk 3 hours but it was worth it. Everything in Ghana is beautiful. I wish we had mountains in Florida. Saturday I also went shopping in Nalerigu and that night all the missionaries got together for dinner and board games.
Sunday I went to a village church with Tommy, the man who took us peanut planting. We were the first to arrive at the church and Tommy honked his horn to signal to the people that it was time to come. Over 40 adults showed up and tons of children. We started with about an hour of singing praise music while walking around in a circle. Then Tommy preached on Acts 27 in Mamprusi which was translated to another tribal language so I did not hear the message but I am sure it was great. It was really neat to see him explain what ships and oceans are to people who have never seen them. Lately I have been reading Genesis and God has been showing me so much. Its amazing how he created every person and knows each hair on their heads. I knew the world was big but now that I am in Africa and there are so many different people, I am seeing that the world and God are so much bigger than I ever imaged. The people in the village were praising my God in there own way and I knew at that very same moment many of my friends and family members on the other side of the world were also praising Him. I am so thankful that I was able to worship with my Christian brothers and sisters in a totally new way that was just as glorifying to God. Psalms 9 "1I will praise you, O Lord, with my whole heart" I am praying for these people because all though there are some who are Christians there are many who are lost. Muslim traditions run deep here. In Psalm 10 David says the devil "sits in the lurking places of the villages...he lies in wait to catch the poor." This verse describes these people so clearly but later in that chapter he says "Lord you have heard the desire of the humble, You will prepare their hears, You will cause Your ear to hear, To do justice to the fatherless and oppressed, that the man of the earth oppress no more." I am confident that the Lord will deliver these people.
I have so much more to write but no time. I love and miss you all.

Prayer Request:
-that I will be filled with God's strength
-that I will be given more opportunities to share the gospel
-that God will use me in the hospital
-Razach to accept Christ as his savor (a man I met in the village who is half way committed to being a Muslim and a christian)
-strength and endurance for the medical staff and missionaries here
-the language barrier
-two little boys ages 2.5 and 3, they weigh about 15 lbs each. they are extremely malnourished but oh so cute.
-one man has severe burns and his prognosis is very dim. he recently became paralyzed so the village "doctor" poored hot water on him to "cure" him but it has left him in a lot of pain and he is probably going to end up with fatal infections

Praises:
-God has blessed me with many awesome hospital experiences - I saw a birth!
-all of the people here, the missionaries and the locals, are extremely nice
-the food is great
-I saw a scorpion and bush babies (I know its selfish but I was praying to see some cool animals)
-the mission group from Shorter college arrived safely


PS. sorry about the horrible typos, i just read my last post and its kind of ridiculous but please remember that I am writing these late and very quickly.