At the youth study lock-in at Houston Chinese Church.  A lock-in is basically like a sleepover.  This one is for the high school and middle school students, and it's a "study" lock-in because I go to a Chinese church and apparently the kids here ask for lock-ins like that so they can study for their AP exams and what-not. haha.

I couldn't sleep the last hour and half (5:30 a.m. - 7 a.m.) because I was too lazy to stuff a blanket into my backpack and I was too proud to borrow an extra sleeping bag.  Also, I wanted to see if I could handle being cold and just sleeping with my pillow in my shorts and t-shirt.  I couldn't really, as the AC got too cold for me.

(ok, well, now I'm back in my room, but let's reflect anyway).

So I spent the hour-and-a-half reading from my iPhone a book Dennis recommended to me, When Invisible Children Sing, as I talked to him about my Loewenstern.  We happened to talk for like an hour-and-a-half on HCC's Health Day because there were no Spanish speakers for us to translate for.  =\  But still, at least I got to find out about this book.

It is incredible.  It is so profoundly moving for me.

The book is about a Christian who goes to Bolivia.  He's taking a gap-year between his third and fourth year of medical school at Harvard Medical School to treat and help street children in La Paz, Bolivia (which is a few hours from where I'm staying, in Cochabamba, but I am hoping to visit La Paz).  Although he was born overseas in Taiwan, I think, and lived for a few years in South Carolina, he mostly grew up at College Station and went to A&M (mind wanders for a bit and gets distracted about person) for his undergrad to support his family.

Reading about him treat and care for this girl for her bleeding (as she just aborted and buried her unborn child in the sludge who died because her boyfriend kicked and hit her in the stomach because he accidentally kinda flew into a fit of rage [but she needs him around and does like him still because he protects her from getting abused/raped from people on the streets]) in the sewers of La Paz, as she and other street children lie/sit by the warm river of excrement is intense and so poignantly moving.

Living among the people practically, and visiting them where they live, sometimes on the streets, sometimes in the sewers... just kinda like the incarnational ministry that Urbana talked about.  He sees the street children and works and tends to their knife wounds and infections and STDs and all sorts of diseases from 10 p.m. - 2 a.m. during the week, while he works at 2 orphanages during the day.

I wish I could be that amazing.  That cool.  haha.

The book is one of those books where I sometimes have to put down to soak it all in... where sometimes I put it down and just let my tears flow.  Hearing about what the street children have to go through is naturally heartbreaking, and reading the book gives me the continual thought of what I'll encounter at my government-run orphange for children with special needs.  Stories as heartbreaking/even more heartbreaking than the ones I read here?  Will I even be able to contain myself from just crying all the time?  (I'm sure I will.  or at least I have to.)

And how much help can I provide anyway?  I'm no med student.  I'm not even out of college.  I feel like I'm getting ready to feel useless right now, actually, because I probably will be pretty useless.

But maybe in the future, I will come back, or maybe the knowledge gained from this summer can be used in a really productive way.  I can't let the inevitability of me not really doing much stop me from seeking to learn and grow as much as I can from this experience so I can one day give something back.

Feeling useless... reminds me of the 12 envelopes with prompts inside that Mac and Sarah (the directors of the fellowship and two of the directors of the CIC) gave each of the Loewenstern Fellows.  Such a cool idea.  I'll probably be sure to post and blog about each one on here.

Here are the instructions on the following 12 envelopes:

#1  Open 2 days before your scheduled departure

(that would be May 11th!  Day before graduation...)

#2  Open 3 days after your arrival in your host community

(I arrive the 14th, so on May 17th... I will have already done two days of service)

#3  Open 2 days after the last question

(May 19th.  They said these envelopes tie in to the last envelope we open)

#4  Open at the mid-point of your experience

(June 17/18thish)

#5  Open after you have had a particularly productive day related to your service

#6  Open on a day when you're pondering the value of your service

(haha.  I wonder how often that'll happen?)

#7  Open one day after the last question

#8  Open after you've had a particularly emotional day related to your service

#9  Open on any day after the mid-point of your experience

#10  Open one week prior to the conclusion of your service

(I think my service would end on July 20th?  Or maybe the 22nd, when I actually fly out? 20th's the last Friday though.  So I should open this on July 13th at the earliest.)

#11  Open one day prior to the conclusion of your service.

(July 19th/July 21st)

#12  Open 1 week after the conclusion of your service.

(July 26th--oooh hayyyy.  Happy 21st to me!  lol.  And happy 29th to my mentor.  =)--or July 29th.  Although I may be at camp and without internet then.)

 

Some side-notes about the book:

It was a little disconcerting to go two thumb-swipes from reading the word Cochabamba to reading the word Houston, haha (he was saying how perhaps one of the kids fled to Cochabamba for the better economy, and then it was a flashback to his family taking his younger sister when he was a boy to what I presume was M.D. Anderson to treat her leukemia).  Houston and Cochabamba... Two words that were never part of my vocabulary four years ago, and now they'll probably stick with me for the rest of my life.

It also took me over half the book to realize that his first name is Chi... well, of course I realized his first name was Chi, but just the fact that it's my accountability partner's last name, you know?  Kinda unnerving/amusing too.

All in all, the book is a huge blessing in preparing me for Bolivia.  I can't wait to read the book Caleb gave me for Christmas too, Open Veins of Latin America.