This week has been like “the week from hell.” Besides being in constant pain (I think it’s a pinched nerve in my neck that goes down to my left shoulder), which adds an “edge” to everything and makes it hard to concentrate; I’ve had a roof to repair, with broken shingles due to the high winds. In attempting to repair the roof, I decided I needed some spare shingles, as our supply was down to one. I cranked up the old riding lawnmower to ride down to this broken pond area, where there’s a stack of shingles that’s been sitting there for years. The dang lawnmower wouldn’t start. My first guess was that the battery had died. One of many “Oh, brother!” moments. I checked the water levels in the battery. Check. I decided to crank it one more time. ‘Oh yeah! I had my foot on the accelerator earlier, instead of the brake (which is required to start it), and so it started. One of the front tires looked low in pressure, but I figured I could make the short trip on it anyway. This turned out to be a very slow journey, as the air was pretty much gone from the tire, which did stay connected to the rim. I loaded up 20+ shingles and headed back for the slow trip. There were times on slight inclines that I thought the tire would come right off the rim. After getting back to the HM office (house), I drove the lawnmower over to the car to try and use my handy car/cigarette lighter air pump. Seems my cigarette lighter power sockets were not functioning in my car — none of the 3! I looked for a blown fuse, which started with a search for ‘Wherever are the fuses located?’ search. Didn’t find any blown ones. I had to put that little task on the back burner. I needed to repair the roof before the predicted heavy rains came later that day (they did). This repair was urgent and took all of a morning. This kept me unproductive in my scheme of things, because I have a deadline in front of me. I haven’t sold hardly any ads for for March/April issue, so I don’t have any time to waste. Never mind the repairs to the fence in the yard around the place from the donkey that constantly tries to escape. I finally figured out he was crawling on the ground underneath the wire, so I added a second wireline to keep him penned up. My next big suckfest was the internet connection out here. I’m typing this on a notepad right now, because I can’t assume I’ll have an internet connection to post it. My internet service provider (ISP) is HughesNet, which is a satellite internet service that caters to rural areas, since the satellite dish just needs to point to the Southern sky to get a signal. It’s supposedly high-speed internet and I can download emails with attachments and listen to music online, but it’s slow. And now I have an older modem that the company will only tech support for so many steps before they give up and say, “You need to get a newer modem.” They’ve been trying to get me to upgrade (for free with a one-year commitment), but I’ve been holding off, because I am very disatisfied with my service and don’t want to commit to another year of this garbage. I went to Best Buy on Wednesday night and signed up for the Verizon Wireless “mifi” mobile hotspot service, which is a small wireless broadband router than you can hook up to five other devices up wirelessly. This sounded like a solution, but I was worried about the coverage out here. I’m in a slight valley, so even tower signals get weaker for me. This took me all morning yesterday to get setup at my house (I figured that having access to my home’s high-speed cable modem internet would make getting setup easier if I had any trouble). It was aggravating to spend all this time getting this setup when I needed to be working on our next issue. When I finally got it working I came out to the office here in the afternoon and tried out the speeds/signal strength. After sending and reciving emails on my notebook, I thought we might have a winner. But it took a long time to get it setup on the desktop computers here. Ahh, not good enough. The signal isn’t enough to download an email with an attachment of any decent size (think 4MB for a typical song), so this “solution” is another failure. Another wasted day. I feel so depressed and frustrated by it all. What a big fat drag.
But all of my frustrations compacted into one week and multiplied by 10 would not equal the intensity and suffering of trying to pry my body out of a big heavy pile of rubble. Imagine if you were in Haiti and you had escaped the immediate dangers of the earthquake (getting trapped by debris, etc), but did not know the whereabouts of your loved ones! What if they were trapped? What if you didn’t know how they were? What if you did and were helpless to dig them out? What if all methods of transportation to help you out were cut off? These are some very real scenarios going down in Haiti right now. This was a massive and catastrophic disaster. It’s hard to fathom the destruction and loss of life there. I heard reports, as most all of you did, that the casualties could be in the hundreds of thousands. That is insane.
I had the privilege of sponsoring a boy in Haiti from age 9 thru his graduation from the Child Sponsorship program in his early 20s. His name is Emmanuel Norestein. I have no idea where’s he’s living in Haiti at this time, as I have lost touch with him after that sponsorship ended in the mid-90s. I am praying for him and sure hope he is okay.
We live in a world that is connected with mass media, the worldwide web and mass transportation. No longer can we accurately afford to ignore what’s going on around us. It’s rough, but it’s also possible to get involved. If you want to get your hands active, there are probably teams in most communities mobilizing to send relief supplies and manual labor. You can also send cach to relief agencies. One organization that I respect a lot has some leadership that I am very impressed with. This organization is Compassion International. While their main focus is child development in third world countries (most helped by child sponsorships), they also help out with at-risk mothers and infants in a rescue-care type of effort, leadership development, as well as disaster relief. I like to know that my money is going to be used wisely and my experience with these folks is they have wisdom and don’t waste time and effort trying to “reinvent the wheel” or ” get credit for helping.” They work with agencies and groups that are indiginous to the area and support what’s working. This mindset, as well as the focused effort of praying and wise men, help oversee an effort like this and manage it well.
For info on helping in Haiti, go to: http://bit.ly/6l9Xhv
The following lyrics from King’s X come to mind and hold true when I weigh my petty complaints with the desperate needs of others not too far away:
Complain:
Ozone disappearing in the sky
Bud Man asking us Why ask why
If I could find my magazine this bug would die
I complainChina boy standing up to a tank
Southern boy living in the house of Yanks
If I can’t seem to get my motorbike to crank
I complainComplain
So much easierSmall kid begging for a crumb of bread
Next kid bloated lying nearly dead
I wonder what to take for my aching head
I complainLots of people crying for a little rain
Whole nation learning how to live with pain
I don’t know how I’m gonna clean this little stain
I complainComplain
So much easierBlack man singing Mississippi blues
Africa starves a little baby drools
I’m trying to figure out all the basketball rules
I complainMr. Rush Limbaugh giving me the facts
Treetops falling and the newsman yaks
I’m thinking about Carter
And how I’m gonna be taxed, heyComplain
So much easier
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