Divine Appointments

Hope

2005-03-15T12:22:00.000-08:00

The first day of the brigade a 40 year old woman came in with a chronic ulcer due to severe varicose veins on her right shin. It started as a bug bite, she said. Most patients with this kind of ulcer in the U.S. are in their 70´s and 80´s.

My first question was, How many kids do you have? Six. Multiple pregnancies are the usual cause of severe varicose veins in younger women. (The other leg had no varicose veins at all, which is often the case.)

She’d had it for over a year, and had been treated with antibiotics several times to no avail. The ulcer was slightly inflamed because of the body´s efforts to heal it, but it wasn´t then, and probably hadn´t ever been infected, since she was otherwise healthy and not a diabetic. In any case, antibiotics would only be an adjunct, to clear up the infection, not to heal the ulcer.

The treatment this woman needed was not high tech. She needed a weekly leg wrap with a zinc oxide-impregnated bandage for several weeks to months. The ointment would keep hard scabs from forming and allow new cells to grow into the ulcer. The foot-to-knee wrap would keep blood from pooling in the swollen veins and causing fluid to leak out into the tissues, resulting in swelling that impedes the arterial inflow needed for healing.

At home, I have these patients come in once a week to have the bandage changed by the nurse. Not rocket science. The bandages themselves only cost a couple of bucks. But they do need to be wrapped carefully and they need to stay on continuously between visits.

My heart sank. Even if we could find the bandage and teach her how to wrap it properly, how was it going to stay in place during a week of walking the dusty dirt road up the mountain? Our elderly patients at home can watch TV with the leg up and drive to the office. This lady had to go and stand in the market every day to support her family. Furthermore, even a few bucks was beyond her reach. And even covered with something, that ointment would attract dirt like crazy. It seemed like such a tragedy that there were so many obstacles to something so fundamentally simple. It´s not a heart transplant, after all!

As we talked, she began to cry and express her fear that it would never heal. I was afraid of the same thing. I really felt discouraged and hopeless. I asked her if we could pray, because I felt we needed a miracle. I had tears in my eyes as I prayed that God would heal her body, mind and spirit. Then I was led to pray that he would provide whatever resources were necessary to heal her.

Well, this prayer changed me. The feeling of hopelessness left me, and I went out to confer with the team about what we had on hand. Nurse Ruth soaked the leg and did a beautiful job removing all the dead tissue (anesthetic provided by the dentists!) while I saw a few more patients. The wound was not as deep as I had feared, PTL! We had a small supply of antibiotic ointment in the pharmacy, and an ace bandage provided the means to counteract the elevated hydrostatic pressure in the leg that was preventing adequate blood flow from reaching the wound to heal it.

Since it was the first day, I told her to come back on the last day so we could re-dress it at least once. She left, smiling, with her return ticket in hand.

On the last day she returned and we re-dressed the wound. It was too soon to see any change, but at least the bandage had stayed on reasonably well.

Ruth and I did our best to explain the how and why of the bandages. We strategized about some things she might use when our supply of two whole Ace bandages lost their stretch and the antibiotic ointment ran out. Petroleum jelly and strips of clean cloth would serve the same functions.

I don´t know how much she understood, or whether she could even afford Vaseline - oh, if only I knew how to find a parish nurse in this barrio! But we did our best with the resources we had. I know she felt greatly encouraged by our efforts and attention, and I am trusting that God will take care of the rest.

Organ Recital

2005-03-12T15:23:00.000-08:00

Over the years I have noticed that people often come to the doctor with a list of problems. One-stop shopping, I’m sure they are thinking; let’s get everything taken care of at once. I can relate to that.

The trouble is, human beings can’t give full attention to multiple things at once (no, not even doctors!) There is actually a concept in learning theory that explains why the brain can’t work that way (although I can’t remember the term right now!)

And of course, folks don’t always mention the most important or serious thing first, or at all, even if they know which is most serious. I once treated a lady who was having a heart attack, but all she cared about was her headache!

During the medical brigade, the patients could access only one service a day. They had to choose between medical, dental and optical. If they wanted another service,they had to come back another day and wait in line again with no guarantee of getting in. So they had to decide which was most important.

Most of them had one or more of about 10 symptoms:

1. Loss of appetite and abdominal pain – diagnosis, parasites
2. Headache – diagnosis, chronic low grade dehydration and heavy physical work, including carrying heavy loads on the head
3. Sore throat, coughs and cold symptoms – mostly viruses and allergies.
4. Pain in the bones – ditto heavy physical work
5. Dizziness – ditto dehydration
6. White blotches on the skin – superficial fungal infection – unsightly, but harmless
7. Skin ‘allergy’ – a non-specific rash that I had no clue about
8. Acid stomach
9. Exertional chest pain and shortness of breath walking up the mountain that Villa Nueva sits on – angina pectoris. Take these baby aspirins until they run out in 30 days and be sure to sit down and rest until the pain goes away. (!!!)
10. Asthma. There’s a lot of wood smoke from cooking in addition to considerable smog.

It was pretty routine to see a mom and a ‘passel’ of kids, and 'laundry lists' of symptoms were the norm. I always started with the baby and worked up to the mom in order to minimize the confusion in my brain. One day I saw a family of 7 – mom, 4 kids, and 2 nephews. Each of them had at least three complaints – some had more. It was late in the afternoon, I was already tired, and the almost-equatorial sun was beating in on us. Fortunately, none of them was really sick. Anti-parasitics, Tylenol and vitamins for all, and they were on their way. Meanwhile, I was toast – cross-eyed with mental fatigue.

So on the next to last day in the afternoon I had already worked through a lot of these families, and another one was in my cubicle. I’d finished with the two or three kids, and mom was giving me her list. Headache, pain in the bones, parasites, dizziness – maybe there was more; it’s all kind of a blur.

And oh! by the way, is there any chance of seeing the dentist? I lost a molar recently and I have a lot of pain, I can’t sleep at night. It just broke off, leaving the root behind.

Believe me, it’s all too easy to tune out towards the end of the list. By the grace of God, that last snapped me out of my fog. Have you had fever? I asked. Yes, she had. I looked in her mouth and winced. The socket was full of pus and the gums red and swollen. We had stopped giving out tickets for the dentists (they pulled hundreds of teeth; the record was 29 from one person), but I was worried about the retained tooth fragment – a wound can’t heal properly with a foreign body in it.

I stepped out to consult with Joe, one of the dentists. He immediately offered to come and look at her. “Oh, yes, that definitely needs attention. I wish she had come earlier in the week so we could load her up with antibiotics beforehand. Give her two grams of ampicillin today and something for pain and have her come back first thing in the morning.”

I was grateful that he was willing to add her to an already full caseload. I begged a dental ticket from Bob and gave her a big bag of horse pills. Shortly thereafter, we finished for the day and I went home and passed out.

The last day was just as busy and exhausting, but when we were done I thought about her again and tracked Joe down to find out what had happened.

Oh yes, he said, it was a good thing she had come, because it wasn’t just an abscess in the soft tissues, but osteomyelitis – infection actually in the bone, from where it can easily get into the bloodstream and cause a catastrophic infection. She could have been dead in two weeks without treatment, he said.

Ay, carumba! It´s a good (God) thing that my numb brain woke up to pay attention to what she was telling me! Those kids definitely did not need to be losing their mama at such a young age.

A Medical Brigade

2005-03-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

When I got to Honduras in January, I wanted to contact my friend Rick, but I didn’t have his phone number. So I emailed him and asked him to call me. The next day, feeling stir-crazy, I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. As I came to the end of the street, I heard an American voice calling my name! Lo and behold, there was Rick! I accompanied him to the Internet café (he had yet to receive my email), where we ran into Sister Patricia, wife of Pastor Rafael whom I had heard of but not met on my previous trip.

Pastor Rafael is also a doctor, and a day or two later Rick introduced me to him. We talked about the medical needs in Honduras for a while, and then he said, about the brigades, “We serve much, but help little.” This articulates very well both my frustration and my commitment.

I’ve been on a couple of medical brigades in Honduras before now with the University of Cincinnati, but I had very mixed feelings about them. My Spanish wasn’t good enough to really understand what people were saying, and the translators were young teenagers from a different social class, so although they understood the words, I knew they were missing nuances. I didn’t feel I could really connect with the people, and from the medical standpoint, the needs were so great, and our resources so limited, that it was painful.

Anyway, Pastor Rafael invited me to join a brigade in February. This group was from Health Care Ministries of the Assemblies of God and was run by some very seasoned people. Bob McGurty, fresh from surviving the tsunami while on vacation in Thailand after many years in Bangladesh, was our fearless leader. (Basically, he and his family survived because they were visiting him in the hospital after he had had a motorcycle accident! When I met him, he was still moving slowly because of a fractured rib.)

“We’re field-driven,” he told me. “We only come in by invitation from local churches.”

This time they were invited by American missionaries Sam and Evelyn Klingler, who are part of a world-wide Assemblies of God ministry of evangelistic tent meetings. The medical brigade was planned with the evangelical churches of a poor barrio creatively named Villa Nueva (New Town), in conjunction with a two-evening revival at the host church, Gate of Heaven.

Bob and head nurse Peggy Johnson and the team of about 25 doctors, dentists, nurses and pharmacists from all over the US had been at the crematorio (city dump) for a few days before I hooked up with them. They had quite some stories to tell about ministering to the people who live there – like how the folks were in competition with the vultures for the garbage!

Bob oriented me to the system. Preprinted cards were used for charting. At the bottom of each one was a series of checkboxes:
• Under 5 years,
• Believer,
• Saved today,
• Healed, and
• Other.

After the medical evaluation, everyone was directed to the consejeria (counseling area) to talk with the volunteers from the local churches and to receive prayer if desired. Nobody could get their medicine from the pharmacy without passing through the consejeria! (Kind of a no-sparrow-shall-fall approach…)

It was gratifying to know that the whole team was on the same page in wanting not only to provide medical treatment to the best of our abilities and resources, but more importantly to offer the people the chance to get hooked up with Jesus, the only one who can shine light in our darkness and fill the big empty hole we all have inside.

So it was very easy to share the love of Jesus with the patients in words as well as in our actions. My Spanish is now good enough that I can usually understand what is going on, and I mostly worked without a translator. I asked everyone if they knew Jesus and checked the appropriate box. Most said they were believers, but I did pray with a few who were willing to receive Christ. (I know God will forgive the halting way I pray in Spanish – all those petitions are supposed to be in the subjunctive mode – arrrgh!) Others, who wanted prayer for healing, I prayed for in English - tongues, after all!

Our pharmacy consisted of anti-parasitic medications, various antibiotics, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, topical steroids and anti-fungals, vitamins, cold medications, a small supply of antihypertensive and antidiabetic medication, and not much else.

Most of what we see is either so minor as to not really need much treatment, or so major as to be beyond our resources. Although I passed out a lot of antibiotics, probably less than five of the hundred and fifty patients I saw actually needed them. (A really nasty tonsillitis and an infected jawbone are the ones that come to mind.)

The anti-parasitics were probably more widely needed, although of course we didn’t have any diagnostic testing available.

Then there was the diabetic who hadn’t been able to afford insulin for the past six months… not much to do for her, our supplies of medication would only last her a few weeks at most. That’s not going to make much of a dent in a life-long condition…

These folks cannot afford even Tylenol, so they are eager to have the opportunity to receive medications and vitamins. I was very willing to oblige, under the ‘serve much’ principle, but I was relieved on this brigade to be able to routinely and openly access the unlimited healing available through Jesus Christ. It’s easy to forget him when we see our medical treatment working effectively, but for those who are more worried than sick, and those for whom we can do nothing medically, the need is more evident. I’ll be posting some of my divine appointments here, so stay tuned!

Elizabeth´s divine appointment

2005-02-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

An excerpt from an email...

Thursday, January 13, 2005

Dear Pamela,

Today was the day. You left the country. I thought about you several times today. I hope you are well.

Tonight a woman, a customer, was buying some very cute small hats. I remarked on how adorable they were. She told me they were for her daughter, Anna. She is taking chemo and has no hair. She first got sick when she was a year old with a brain tumor. This is her second time through chemo. I bring this up because I told the woman I would think about Anna just as I'm thinking about you.

You know how you thought that you went to Minnesota so that you could rescue that Hispanic man? I went to work tonight so I could hear that woman's story. I imagine she needs to tell it often. It worked out so no one was behind her in line so I could give her a few minutes.

....

Elizabeth

Listening to his heart

2005-02-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

This incident occured on December 27, 2004.
I’ve been a member of a group that meets for prayer, fellowship and study for over a year now. This fall we were studying a book on healing and I was working at a rural Veteran´s Administration primary care clinic. I was telling the group about performing evaluations for the Agent Orange registry, and how so many of the vets are wounded – mentally, physically and spiritually. After the discussion, Lynn really had a burden to pray for me and my ministry, and who was I to say no? I couldn´t recall anyone else in 18 years of practice ever asking to come alongside me in my ministry of healing as a doctor.

I had shared a couple of the most striking stories with the group, but I was not surprised that after they laid hands on me the patient care was incredibly ordinary, mundane, and unexceptionable. I finished up my main stint at the VA and came back home for Thanksgiving. I was scheduled to work a few extra days in December to help with the vacation coverage. The first week back I was able to clean up a large backlog of charts AND preview all the computer records for the first day of the second week.

So as I drove up the second week I was feeling pretty good that I wouldn’t be missing anything important due to a backlog of charting. As I drove I was remembering the group’s laying-on of hands and smiling to myself about how nothing unusual had seemed to happen afterward. I arrived at the clinic just as they brought the first patient back. After I had seen a couple of guys, my nurse came by to inform me that the next guy was having trouble breathing. (I knew what that meant – an at-least-60-minute visit in a 20-minute slot and therefore a significant derailment of the schedule. I rolled my eyes but I wasn’t really upset; I’d already had to admit 2 or 3 supposedly stable “routine follow-up” patients directly to the hospital from the clinic during the earlier stint and I knew it was always a possibility.) So, even before I saw him, experience was telling me that I’d be admitting him as well because he likely was having a heart attack.

I walked over to the treatment room to start evaluating the patient. “Fred” was lying on the gurney with his eyes closed. He was in his late 70’s, and I knew from my previous chart review that he, like the majority of the patients there, had a personal medical history that put him at high risk for heart attacks – diabetes, elevated cholesterol, age, etc. He was accompanied by a daughter-in-law who appeared to be in her early thirties and a granddaughter who couldn’t have been much over five. I started taking the history from Fred. He’d come back to his son´s house the night before after taking refuge with other relatives when the power went out during the ice storm. The daughter in law had noticed he seemed short of breath. The day of the visit he barely made it in from the parking lot up the stairs, and finally gave out in the hall before he got to the reception desk. And by the way, he was having pain in his neck.

Fred kept his eyes closed while I talked to him, and he kept saying “I’m sorry” and “Don’t be mad at me.” Whenever he said that, his daughter-in-law would reassure him that no one was mad at him. This must have happened at least 25 times during about 30 minutes. I began to get curious about what was behind it.

After I got the history, I put on my stethoscope to listen to Fred’s heart. Just as I touched his chest he began to sob loudly. Alarmed, I pulled back, thinking perhaps I had startled him by touching him without warning. No, that wasn’t it, but he couldn’t tell me what it was. “I just feel like bawling lately! Help me, help me, Jesus,” he said. I asked him if he would like me to pray with him. “Yes,” he said, and so I took his hand and prayed that Jesus would bring him peace and healing.

I went ahead and finished the physical exam, then was moving back and forth between charting and writing in the computer and asking additional questions of Fred and his daughter-in-law. Fred continued to say “I’m sorry, don’t be mad, help me Jesus” at frequent intervals, as well as to tear up and contort his face with emotion.

I asked his daughter-in-law if he’d always done that. “I’m sorry” was frequent, she said, but the crying was something completely new. She continued to reassure him when he said “I’m sorry,” but I started using some reflective listening each time he said it. “You’re sorry?” “You’re worried that someone will be mad?” His responses when I checked things out in that way were only marginally more communicative – nothing that gave me any clue about what the crying and all was about, but I kept reflecting back everything he said.

I finished my charting and orders and checked back with Fred about the pain in his neck, which I thought was angina because a lot of times diabetics don’t get actual chest pain with a heart attack. Six out of ten, he said. I asked the nurse to get a nitroglycerin tablet and I stood by the gurney to wait for her to bring it.

Fred teared up again and I had a sudden thought. (Three months at the VA had sensitized me to the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder in World War II vets.) I looked over to the daughter-in-law. “Where did he serve?” I asked. Just at that moment, he began sobbing and pouring out this story:

He had been in Okinawa, and the Japanese troops were trapped by the Allied forces. Rather than be killed by the Allies, they committed hare kiri (suicide). Fred felt responsible for their deaths and was now sobbing out his grief and guilt for the first time in over 50 years. (His daughter-in-law said he had never spoken of it before.)

I reminded him that the Bible says “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.” I led him in a prayer of confession and then asked him if he could forgive himself (he was having a hard time with this) for the sake of showing his granddaughter the way.

At this point another nurse came in preparatory to transferring him to the inpatient ward. She saw what was going on and came right over to help. “It’s all been covered by the Blood – it’s all taken care of," she told him. We continued to pray and talk to him for a minute or two.

Finally the first nurse returned with the nitroglycerine tablet. “How’s your pain now?” I asked. “Two,” he said, appearing more relaxed than he had previously. He took the nitro and 5 minutes later the pain was gone.

I looked over at his daughter-in-law and she was dissolved in tears. The first nurse was hugging and comforting her. The granddaughter was standing stiff and staring straight ahead. I went over and asked the little girl if she was worried. She didn’t speak or look at me. “You know how you feel better after you cry? Mom and Grandpa feel better just the same way.”

The transport team came and took Fred out on the gurney. The daughter-in-law said to me, “He’s never talked to us about any of that. How did you do that?”

“Well,” I said, “I used active listening to hear what was in his heart. You’ve probably noticed that when you tell him no one is mad at him, it doesn’t really stop him saying it?”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“When people keep saying things like that, there’s something behind it. I got curious and started reflecting back what I was hearing so he would know I was really listening. It’s not that complicated, but it’s not something we get taught in school, and it’s especially hard with family members. I can show you how to do it, though, if you want.”

“Oh, yes!”

“Well, there are three parts. First, you use a tentative opening, because you’re checking to see if you heard correctly what the person is saying. You say something like, ‘so, are you saying’ or ‘am I hearing you say…”

I got a paper towel and a pen and wrote down
1. tentative opening
2. thought content
3. feeling content.

“The second part, thought content, means “what the person is thinking.” For example, ‘someone will be mad’ would be an example of thought content. Then the feeling content is the person’s emotions about that. Sometimes they don’t say them out loud and you have to guess, like ‘you’re worried that someone will be mad at you.’ When you use all three parts, the person knows that you’re really listening and he feels safe to tell you more.”

I handed her the paper towel and said with a smile, “It works really well with husbands and children. I’m a little worried that your daughter may have been upset by all this. You might want to use this to talk to her.”

She got up to go. “Thanks so much,” she said. “You’re welcome, and God bless you,” I replied.

I left the treatment room asked my nurse about the rest of my patients. “You had two more scheduled,” she said. “One called to cancel and the other is a no-show.” It was 11:30 am, and I had finished up exactly on time. God had answered my prayer for Fred to experience peace and healing and I was privileged to be His instrument in fulfillment of the prayers of my small group.

Spanish in the frozen North

2005-01-26T13:19:00.000-08:00

A copy of an email I sent...

Dear Jason,

I assume you’ve received your copy of Po Bronson’s "What Should I Do with My Life" by now. I’m sorry about not sending it within 48 hours, but I believe I was divinely prevented from doing so. If you are interested in the story, read on. If not, just enjoy the book!

I was selling my used books because I was packing up to move to Honduras for six months. I’ve been studying Spanish for quite a while, for no particular reason except that I enjoy it, and I’ve been wanting to put it to use. Honduras seemed like a good place since I know people there.

When I got your order from Amazon.com, I was out of town. When I got home I couldn’t find the book. I thought it was just under a pile from all my packing, but although I looked through all the stacks of books, it was nowhere to be found. I even prayed that God would help me find it, which he has done many times before (although always in his own sweet time.)

I was debating whether to refund your money or to buy a new copy to send you. (I really hate to renege on a deal.)

I was still debating when I left to visit friends in Minnesota just before my Honduras trip. I didn’t have time to buy the book before going to the airport on January 5th, but I knew I would have time in the Minneapolis suburb where my friends live (before we left for a cross-country ski weekend.)

On the morning of the 6th after breakfast I asked my friends if there was a bookstore close enough to walk to, since they were using the car all morning. “Yes, Borders is nearby, but it’s cold out!”

The temperature was probably about 10 degrees, but I was already dressed in my cross-country ski clothes, so I wasn’t worried. Long underwear, heavy wool sweater, boots, windbreaker with hood, scarf, hat and gloves – I knew I’d be fine. I put my American Express card and cell phone in my pocket, leaving my purse behind.

The ice on the sidewalks was treacherous in places, but I was careful and got to Borders with no problem. The clerk found the book for me immediately. When I remarked on this, he said he had just shelved it that morning. I knew I had plenty of time, so I decided to go next door to Best Buy to buy a USB drive, after which I headed back.

I was on a residential cul-de-sac prior to cutting through a park to get home, when I noticed a man sitting on the ground leaning against a tree. He was obviously Hispanic, and there was no possible reason why anyone would sit under a tree on such a day. I walked slowly past, thinking hard, and then turned to look back at him. I could see that he had no hat or gloves. After hesitating for a moment, I decided that I could not just leave without asking if he needed help. After all, what other Spanish speaker would be likely to come along on a Thursday morning in a Minneapolis suburb?

I walked back and asked,
“Hola, que tal? Hay un problema?” (Hi, how are things? Is there a problem?)
“No, no problema.”
“Don’t you have any gloves?” I continued in Spanish.
“No.”
“Here, take my gloves and hat.” (I was close to home and knew I could put up my hood and keep my hands in my pockets.)

He tried to put the gloves on, but couldn’t manage to get his fingers in correctly.

“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for the bus.”
“This is very small street and no buses come here. You need to walk over there to the main street to get a bus. Where do you want to go?”
“Downtown Minneapolis.”

It was clear he was drunk. I tried to find out if he had any family or friends that I could call on my cell phone, but I couldn’t get much out of him, not even his name. He wouldn’t keep the gloves on, and all he was wearing was a shirt and thin cotton sweater with a windbreaker – no winter coat. I was concerned that he would freeze to death if he didn’t get inside.

I decided to walk him over to the main thoroughfare half a block away. When we got there, I was relieved to see a bus stop a block away. I pointed it out, but he showed no interest in going there, so I decided to walk him to it, meanwhile frantically thinking what to do, in an unfamiliar city where I didn’t even know which way downtown was. Also, buses don’t take American Express :-)

As we walked along a remaining short row of single-family homes on this major artery, we came to one where two men were chipping ice in the driveway (an elderly man and, apparently, his adult son.) I asked them which way to go to get downtown, and told them I had found the guy and wanted to get him to a homeless shelter and did they have a dollar so I could put him on the bus? The son told me which way was downtown, then pulled out his wallet and with a smile gave me two bucks, “in case I needed more.”

I took my new friend by the arm and we walked to the bus stop. A young woman with a little girl was just getting off a bus, and the driver was telling her what bus to take downtown. I told her the situation and asked her if she knew of any homeless shelters. She mentioned several social service agencies, but I didn’t have any confidence that I could find them. “Call 211,” she said, “it’s a central information number for social services.” “I have an out of town cell phone,” I replied, “Do you know the area code and full number?” She rattled it off without hesitation, “651-291-0211.”

I called and they connected me with a shelter that agreed to take him. It was located next to the Greyhound station, so I figured the bus driver could tell me how to get there. Feeling confident now that I would not be wandering aimlessly around downtown Minneapolis, I asked the woman how much the fare was. “$1.25,” she replied. “I’ve only got 2 bucks,” I said. “I’ll pay for him,” she said, “Look out, he’s wandering off.”

I retrieved my amigo and sat him down on the bench. A bus came along within 10 minutes. The driver said she’d tell us where to change to get to the Greyhound station and gave us transfers. I parked my friend in a seat and he appeared to doze off. Every so often he would start talking to me, but I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. He kept talking about “errors” but I couldn’t get clear which (or whose) errors.

It was an express bus and we were soon downtown. The young mother pointed out the social service building that she had mentioned and I decided to go there rather than hassle with transferring to another bus. I thanked her for her help.

The bus driver expressed her appreciation to both of us and asked me how I was going to get home. “I’ll get a cab,” I said, “and my friends can pay the fare when I get there.” “I’ll give you a free pass for the bus,” she said. “You can pick it up over there for the return trip.” She gave the young mother a free pass as well.

My friend and I got off the bus and walked two blocks. The information desk sent us to Room 3700, the Multicultural office. A Muslim woman with a charming accent said she would call a Spanish interpreter and we sat down to wait. My friend continued to talk, mostly unintelligibly, as we sat with people with all shades of skin color and various exotic languages and outfits.

Within ten minutes the Spanish interpreter came out to take my friend to her office. I shook his hand, said “Que Dios le bendiga!” (May God bless you!) I gave the interpreter the hat and gloves, she thanked me for bringing him, and I headed back to the bus stop. I was warm enough with my scarf and hood and my hands in my pockets, the bus came within 10 minutes, and I was back in the suburbs in no time.

You can call it coincidence, but I think it was a divine appointment. I had been thinking it was crazy to be going to Minnesota when my time to pack was so short, but now I know why I was there.

The efficiency of the whole process was miraculous too.

Although I have the usual fear of entanglement in other people’s messy affairs, I knew I had plenty of time that day, I had my cell phone to let my friends know where I was, and I just didn’t think I could go to sleep if I had to think about that guy out in the cold, possibly freezing to death.

So my ministry in Spanish began sooner than expected.

I hope you enjoy the book.

Cordially,
Pamela Hanson

p.s. God does answer prayer:-) The original copy turned up immediately upon my return home. I had been looking for a red cover, but the book was upside down and the back cover was yellow.

pjh