mercy

Sorry for the delay in posts... it's been an interesting week.

My allergies culminated into a full on head explosion... no breathing, no sleeping, etc etc.
So that was fun. Luckily the drugs I got from the Chemist are finally kicking in and I'm feeling a bit better.

So of course, yesterday was the perfect day for my hard drive to crash. Of course.

After shooting error messages at me all day, it weirdly turned on last night, leaving me enough time to back up the rest of my pictures and music I hadn't protected yet. Huge blessing. But alas, this morning the screen greeted me with the ominous flashing question mark folder= hard drive has peaced out.
Awesome. Especially when my startup CDs are in Mandeville, LA.

So yeah, its been an interesting week.

It's very weird to want to be upset about something like a computer crashing- when all I do all day is walk around in slums where people don't have water.

It's very weird to want to wallow in self pity about an allergy attack or a severe cold when all I do all day is talk to people that have HIV.

Friday I met Mercy. She's 23- my age- and she's HIV+. She lives in Mukuru slums in South B.
She met up with us at the hairdressing school and walked us through all the twists and turns of rusty tin "walls" to bring us to her PTC group meeting. We couldn't walk more than 20 feet without her joyously greeting someone. Everyone wanted to talk to her. In fact, she was an hour late picking us up, which Grace blamed on the fact that "she likes to interact with people."

Mercy is the Secretary of her PCT group. She is also an actress and works for a media company in town. She is also going back to school. She sounds busier than a sophomore pi phi.

Why does she get her life and I get mine? Why do the things that bring me down pale in comparison to the things that plague the rest of the world- and yet the joy emanates from me pales in comparison to the joy that explodes from Mercy as she leads me around sewage ditches in her home community?

Remember that time I think I can do anything? I can fix a computer, I can pull 3 all-nighters in a row, I can travel to a foreign country and take care of myself, by myself?

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things not are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." 1 cor 1:26-31