1/18/10

So we've been doing the work thing for the last two days here at Tosba Raya Adventist Mission and I'm not sure there is a much of a direction. I was talking to the doctor last night and he had no idea what we were here to do. Due to miscommunication, I'm afraid the staff here assume that we just showed up to help them with whatever needed to be done around the mission. Granted, we have been working on getting the Clinic in Francia open, but there are way more of us than there is work to do. So a lot of us have been attending to the "list" that the folks here have of stuff that has to be done. I'm not against helping the mission I just hope that they can understand that we are here as students who have a program to fulfill; in other words we aren't student missionaries who are just here to work on random projects. The clinic is ready to be opened after a lot of painting and organizing, as well as an awesome door frame built by Matt, Dan and I. Tomorrow we hope to begin clinics but I'm not really sure what is going to happen. Unfortunately there hasn't been much casting of vision as to what is going to happen so we have been kind of living from day to day. I keep telling myself to, pardon the cliché, go with the flow and not expect anything. However it does concern me that we don't have any idea of how the classes are going to proceed; I really don't want to have a bunch of 10 hour class days because we wasted too much time in the beginning.

My one fear comes from an unfinished building just up the hill from the mission house. It was intended to be our dorm and classrooms for this semester but now its only a hulk of a first floor. I've heard that Jeff has every intention of finishing it this semester with the use of our labor. This would be a major disappointment as I came down here to do medical work and learn as much as possible in that vane. I did not pay a $5600 program fee on top of tuition to finish a building that Union paid to have finished by the time I got here.