Day of rest II

Having said that I would try to keep the Sabbath properly, (which sounds old fashioned, obsessively religious and distinctly ‘uncool’), I have, for the first time in ages, managed to have a really great day without having to feel that my to do list has gone down. I’m sure many of you will have read variations on the theme of “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy”. Like most well worn sayings it is true. Without wishing to wax too lyrical about the benefits of stopping, reflecting and catching your breath I really hope to make it a habit. It’s too easy to charge ahead with any number of projects to the point where they control you. If resting on the seventh day was good enough for God it’s got to be right for me. Especially if it means I can ‘do good’ on the other six days.

It looks like we will have to arrange another ‘hospital break’ tomorrow. Last year I wrote about the case of one of our girls who was kept in hospital for some time after she should have been discharged because of an error in processing the paperwork to enable the hospital to reclaim the cost of her treatment from the government health fund. One of our young people who is now boarding at a local high school was admitted to hospital at the beginning of the week with ‘strong’ malaria and typhoid. This is not particularly encouraging as he must have caught them at school. He was due to be discharged from hospital today so we sent one of our staff down to pay the fees and take him back to school. Unfortunately it turned out that the doctor who was to sign the discharge note was not on duty today so the sister on the ward refused to let our patient go. This is doubly frustrating as it means we will have to pay for another fare to Oyugis and back for a member of staff tomorrow and will have to pay for another night’s stay at the hospital for our patient. It looks like we will have to get Mary, our manager, on the case.

I would appreciate it if anybody who is disposed towards praying could offer up a prayer for my wife Judi. She continues to remain amazingly upbeat during her course of treatment for breast cancer. She should have had her fourth chemotherapy session last Thursday. Unfortunately one of her blood counts was too low for the treatment to be given so she is hoping to be up to it tomorrow, (Monday 16^th). My thanks for all the prayer support that Judi and I have received to date. It’s easy to be sceptical about prayer but I know that I start running on empty if I neglect it. The idea that “all things are possible with God” has been so overworked or misapplied that it has become, for many people, a cheesy Christian cliché. Despite this it remains a powerful principle and one that has kept both Judi and I going through the challenges we are currently experiencing. One of my favourite comedians of old, Dave Allen, ended his TV shows with the mischievously oblique phrase “may your God go with you”. I’m very thankful that He promises to, whatever circumstances I find myself in.