My football players*

This morning I woke up to the sound of a complete down pour. I laid in bed and thought to myself that I don't have to get out of bed because everyone else is going to be late to work anyway. I am going to miss the fact that rain is an acceptable reason to be a few minutes late to work.

I wore my boots to work this morning and it's a good thing I did because the entire hospital was flooded, again. I had to walk through the compound very slowly so that the water didn't come up above the top of my boots. I was quite frustrated for a while this morning and then I reminded myself just to laugh. There's nothing we can do about a flood so why raise my blood pressure over it.

I was talking with a patient this morning and as I was completeing a form for him I asked him about his past partners. He told me that she had gone home already and it stopped me as I was writing. He said it again: "She's gone home". I then understood what he meant and said alright. We continued to talk but what stuck out to me was the complete ease and confidence he had in the simple statement: "She's gone home". Always amazed at others confidence in God.

I was laying in bed thinking last night about an experience i've had in college that i've wanted to blog about for a long time but never got around to. My junior year of college I took an anatomy class and for this class we had a lab in which we had to discet a cat. My lab partner dropped out after about the third week of class and I was left alone. My proffessor told me I had the options to switch groups but that once I switched I wouldn't be able to switch again. I looked to my left and there were two girls who are both very hard work and I knew they were definately A students and then I looked directly in front of me and there were two football players who were struggling with their cat. I walked over to the girls but my heart went out to the two boys and after a few minutes I asked them if I could be their lab partner. They said yes. :)

We worked together all semester and even more than being lab partners we became study buddies. We would work together for hours the days and weeks before the different tests that we would have. I was wondering at first what I got myself into; I could have picked an easier group to be with but I'm never the kind of person to choose the easy way out. I now look back at my time working with Robert and Matt and I don't think I could have had a better semester. My junior year of college was not my favorite year of college and there were many days in which I was completely upset and stressed out at life. I remember walking to the library one day to meet the boys and almost being in tears. Robert and Matt came and they immediately made me laugh, and laugh, and laugh some more. By the end of our study time I had forgotten what I had been so upset about and felt really relieved.

Another time I was terribly sick and I knew that I was going to have a hard time working in the lab that night but our cat had to have certain parts labeled by the next day and I had to go in. I had a meeting so I told Robert and Matt just to meet me there and they said they would go in earlier because they didn't have anything. By the time I got to the lab they had already finished 90% of the work. I felt sooo relieved. All I had to do was help them find a few things that were tricky and we were finished. I looked over at the two girls who were A students and they had just begun doing their work because they had procrastinated. To me this was a reminder from God that I really shouldn't judge people in their ability to work hard.

The next semester I took a nutrition class with the same professor. One day we were working on a project and I was the only student around and the professor came up to me. He told me how in his eight years of teaching I was the students who had impressed him the most. He told me how it didn't matter that I may not have gotten 100% in his class but that I had gotten a good grade and help two other people to pass. He told me that without me those boys would have never made it through that class and that I had helped them more than any other tutor he could have thought of.

Although my professor told me all those nice things about myself I think Robert and Matt helped me more than I helped them. They helped me to remember that it's always worth helping people even if you think it might be a little bit more work. They reminded me that whenever you give you always recieve more than you would have ever thought. They made me laugh and smile on some of my worst days and that is something you can't put a price on. I don't even know if they knew I was going through such a tough time, but that was the great thing they didn't need to.

Don't ever pass up the chance to help a Robert or Matt - you never know just how much they will help you.

I know this story isn't about Guyana but the thing is it really is about Guyana. Guyana has helped me more than I've ever helped Guyana. I laugh and I am healed by the goodness that is around me. Sure the place may be flooded and the mini buses may drive fast but amidst every bad thing I could name I could name another ten good things. Never judge, this is my constant lesson

That is all.


All my love,

Ashley Ann