Sometimes carers get overwhelmed. Our city hospitals are packed: COVID is in the neighborhoods and people are very sick. Vaccinations go on and those help tamp down the death rate. But even the vaccinated caregivers are overwhelmed. Some have died. Vaccinations of helpers and residents goes on in the universities, hospitals, and clinics. So far, Sinovac (Chinese traditional vaccine) is our option. W and I are fully vaccinated.
We do our regular videos (3 a week) and updates. Between visits and meetings, I need some art time. What's nearby? I spray-paint a pretty blue on the empty Ramadan cookie pails for the office balcony. The red ones from 2020 add a pop of color. Next plastic-cookie-pail season, I may add green.
3. Coping takes many forms. At its best, it is helpful or useful.
For me, making art or music helps me process the lockdown. During zoom calls, I pull out stencils and watercolors - each call is its own mosaic.
In the neighborhood, someone is repairing their curb with bricks and mortar. Each layer of repair (see the new little brick wall?) and each pass of paving - here gravel, asphalt, and concrete - adds to the history of the street. The drainage ditch isn't very even since it was built around obstacles and fences, but it does the job during heavy rainfalls.
We spot our yardman Pak Lili clipping grass at a neighbor's house with his hedge scissors. He does most lawns this way or uses a machete to skim off the tips of the grass.
Meanwhile, someone has added striping to the street, carefully going around tree roots so as not to disturb any spirits living in the branches. The garbage was dumped at the side of the street, a common occurrence by those without garbage pickup. The individual helpers sweep the streets in front of a house daily. That lucky-someone will have to pick up the littered trash, hopefully before the plethora of cats go through it.
We have to put anything we're sending to friends up on the top of the porch swing. Otherwise dogs (ours) and cats (everyone else's) think it's for them. Here, a plate of cookies waits to be delivered.
I find the right IKEA frame for Rut's dad's painting. Makes me smile every time I see the tulips. They join a silver Filipino jeepney (public bus in the Philippines) and a seed pod found on the street.
One day, we join friends for lunch and a theology chat.
On the way home, we stop by the reject shop (imperfect dishes). A set of 6 cups and saucers costs about $18US. They'd sell for $50-100 or more in the USA or Europe. I've seen the labels in houseware shops in Seattle.
Racks of dishes - "seconds" bowls, plates, and serving pieces - are heaped high. I come home with a few plates to send along with birthday cookies this coming year.
We also pass a new-to-me fabric market street. We find out that the fabrics sold in the city markets and shops come from here. Once this COVID lockdown is over, I'll have to head down to see their batiks. Bolts of cloth of every kind line the almost-empty streets.
Casey has come to visit for the week. This little cutie attacks anyone when she's in her owner's arms and is a fierce guardian when they have her on a leash. She is friendly as can be otherwise and everyone likes her. She keeps Laurel good company.
Another relief for me: I publish
Volume 2 of my 3-book series on the women who served around the world in the early 1900s. They're a fascinating group - not necessarily educated, not very connected to resources.
The women believed that God was calling, sending, and supporting them. What more did they need? So they left their American hometowns to teach, preach, run schools, and set up medical care in Africa, Asia, South and Latin Americas, Europe.
They were an amazing group, changing the world. Much of the boom in global literacy in the 1900s was due to such women.
Book 1 is free on Kindle Unlimited.
Vol 3 is also available but needs a TOC. (I'll get to that eventually.) They'll be in paperback once I figure out how to put a cover on them. I'm such a tech dummy.
We go to town one morning to get PCR tests so we can attend a conference. Earlier this week Ibu Apong baked double-ginger cookies (chopped and powdered ginger). She dipped them halfway in melted chocolate. It's hard to leave the small luxuries behind, even if they're waiting in the fridge for our return ...
The scribble on my notebook cover:
Here's this week's question: "What would you find hardest to leave behind if God asked you to serve far from home?"
Read more:
*Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you. Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Savior, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise. Psalm 51:10-15
*[God says, ]They shall be mine and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve. Malachi 3:17
*He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will. Ephesians 1:5
Moravian Prayer; Merciful God, teach us your compassion and grace, that we may forgive ourselves, as you forgive us, when we stumble or go astray. May we remain yours forever as a blessed and holy family. Amen.
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