At work we have this "thing" where somebody walks up to you and says "How's it going?" No matter what, the answer is always "Livin' the dream." The person who started that is long gone but the phrase is not.
Today in church I heard that phrase again, only this time it wasn't sarcastic. Hylan wasn't talking about the "American Dream," he was talking about living out the dreams that God gives us. (This was in the context of Sanctity of Human Life Week.) As I thought about it there in church it really put things into perspective. I'm trying to live THE dream!
It all started in September of 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. I had gone to Mississippi provide medical support in a special needs shelter. My mom, who works at World Vision, called me on my cell phone and asked me if I knew of any organizations that might take some medical supplies somebody wanted to donate. The long story short was that most organizations do not accept donations of medical supplies from private donors and only accept bulk. That just about killed me so I started accepting the supplies and using them in the learning lab at the nursing school.
It didn't take too long before I started drowning in supplies and I had to start looking for more homes for this stuff. In Feb. of 2007 I went as an instructor for 8 nursing students to work at a clinic in Mexico City. We took some of the supplies with us on that trip. As it turns out, those supplies turned out to be quite a blessing. However, in spite of what we brought our girls were still taught to wash gloves, sterilize needles for reuse, cut and fold cheese cloth to make gauze pads, etc... It was in Mexico City that I realized that this whole supply donation thing was a lot more important than I had first thought. (Refer to My Office Runneth Over a few entries back).
Since getting back from Mexico City I continued to receive calls from people wanting to donate supplies. It wasn't long until my office at the school was filled. This was becoming a much bigger project than I. In the back of my mind I knew it needed to become a real registered organization in order to continue its purpose but it wasn't until my dad said it in an email that I really started to pursue it.
Last week Shiloah Health Outreach with the help of Kare Kontainer, made it's first official shipment of supplies to two hospitals in Central Africa and began "living the dream."
To be continued...
Today in church I heard that phrase again, only this time it wasn't sarcastic. Hylan wasn't talking about the "American Dream," he was talking about living out the dreams that God gives us. (This was in the context of Sanctity of Human Life Week.) As I thought about it there in church it really put things into perspective. I'm trying to live THE dream!
It all started in September of 2005 during Hurricane Katrina. I had gone to Mississippi provide medical support in a special needs shelter. My mom, who works at World Vision, called me on my cell phone and asked me if I knew of any organizations that might take some medical supplies somebody wanted to donate. The long story short was that most organizations do not accept donations of medical supplies from private donors and only accept bulk. That just about killed me so I started accepting the supplies and using them in the learning lab at the nursing school.
It didn't take too long before I started drowning in supplies and I had to start looking for more homes for this stuff. In Feb. of 2007 I went as an instructor for 8 nursing students to work at a clinic in Mexico City. We took some of the supplies with us on that trip. As it turns out, those supplies turned out to be quite a blessing. However, in spite of what we brought our girls were still taught to wash gloves, sterilize needles for reuse, cut and fold cheese cloth to make gauze pads, etc... It was in Mexico City that I realized that this whole supply donation thing was a lot more important than I had first thought. (Refer to My Office Runneth Over a few entries back).
Since getting back from Mexico City I continued to receive calls from people wanting to donate supplies. It wasn't long until my office at the school was filled. This was becoming a much bigger project than I. In the back of my mind I knew it needed to become a real registered organization in order to continue its purpose but it wasn't until my dad said it in an email that I really started to pursue it.
Last week Shiloah Health Outreach with the help of Kare Kontainer, made it's first official shipment of supplies to two hospitals in Central Africa and began "living the dream."
To be continued...
1 comment:
Okay, so it's been so long since I've seen you and I forgot that you had a blog! For some reason I forgot to link to you from my blog...I remedied that! Anyways, I enjoy reading about your endeavors and I hope we can hang out again soon! Thanks for the complements on our blog - feel free to send people our way! :o) I hope you have a wonderful and not-too-stressful week!
Post a Comment