Convictions

Everyday of my life as I deal with young people and listen to the media, I become more aware that the average American, spoiled by the indulgence of technology and all that technology has produced as far as communications, and the “easy life,” has no idea of how the rest of the world lives. They know there is a place in the world called Timbuktu in Africa. But they probably think it is like an American city located in the desert. The first time I walked down the main street of Timbuktu , I had my guide get me out the way of goats being herded down the street by a goat herder, even though I stayed in the best hotel in the place. Because of the country Mali being located in the desert, there was grit or sand in everything, your food, on the sheets of your bed. I road a camel out into the desert to visit a Bedouin village and the thing I remember most other then those terrible camels, were the fences of thorn bushes in which they kept their livestock, their tents, (back then I had a small amount of vision in one eye their very dark eyes) and the fact that in spite of their desolate poverty they were very happy.

I noticed this all over the world, the poorer the people the happier there expressions. Even on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan (this was long before the present conflict, during Russian conflict) even though you are not allowed to photograph at border immigration points, I did sneak a few photographs of Afghans trying to enter Pakistan. They would have donkeys fully loaded down with their possessions, they were carrying on their backs what appeared to be possessions tied up in large sheets and in spite of their national dilemma and their poverty, they still had patience with their children.

Once I asked a university student who was driving for me, and I had suggested we stop at a fast food place for lunch, “have you ever considered what it was like for our forbearers to cross this country in covered wagons and the problem of preparing food?” He said, “I’m sure they stopped at a McDonalds,” Now, he was not joking when he made that comment, like a small child who was sitting near me in a restaurant just yesterday, her mother said “she takes her cell phone to school in her book bag” I said to the mother regarding the elementary grade student, “they have never known life without radio or TV, or telephones, they do not realize that most of us were reared at a time where there was not a phone for many miles.” My son, with several doctorates, spent many years of his young life in the foreign mission field. He said that technology has reached the far flung areas of the world. TV, cell phones, etc.

Think of the 2 1/2 million Egyptian slaves ( children of Israel) in the desert for 40 years, a scorpion of brass was put on a post which cured their bites when they looked at it. This very day, the brass scorpion is the symbol of the medical officer that he wears on his caducei on his military uniform. Survival, even for today’s military, is not that different from the survival from those in the desert anywhere.

Our religious convictions will cause us to survive the worst trials of our life or will cause us to surrender or give up when adversity threatens, unless we have the knowledge that others have endured. I can endure the darkness of blindness because I know that many before me have endured such. Someone invariably says to me about once a month, “do you think it is better to have lost your vision as you did in the military or to have been born blind?” God is in charge, I have learned not to question his omniscience. I am thankful that I could see as a young person the marvel and beauty of the world. I have known the thrill of reading a book and driving a car. I must have said to God, a thousand times, “Why me?”

The streets are endangered by criminals with eyes who can see the thorns on a rose bush from a great distance and yet have not prepared themselves to do anything and with my knowledge, I could have done so much. There are so many patients in the world who would have been happy with my professional care. The same answer has always come back , “you can handle it.”

GOD IS BOSS. Help us to accept His Will for our lives.