Had to write about an amazing week.  First on Monday Bill and I had a great trip to New York for Solid Earth to meet with the Manhattan Association of REALTORS.

Then on Thursday Ian Symmonds and the Randolph Phase II Team produced incredible plan for the future of the school.

Then, still on Thursday, a man who’d been an obstacle in the path of one of my projects called me on the phone and asked to come and see me! He was really nice, we talked and I hope, we reached a solution.

Then, still on Thursday, a summary of the Phase II plan was presented at the regular December Randolph Trustee meeting.

Then, on Friday I got my second MRI at Huntsville Medical Mall.  I get MRIs every 90 days for the next three years in an ongoing attempt to catch metastatic uveal melanoma before it spreads.  I should not get scans on Fridays because it takes too long to get the results.

Then on Saturday we went to the Derrick Street homeless camps and served breakfast with: Andrew Bevel, Melissa Hiley, Judy Howard, John Newton and Julie Fowler.  We saw a bunch of old friends and met Pete Bradway’s brother Mike.  I am not sure Huntsville is ready for two Bradways but here they are.  Tonight they are staying at a local motel until we can find a more permanent place for them.  Please pray for Pete and Mike.

Then on Sunday morning we got to go to church, take Pete and Mike to Tenders for lunch.  I got to talk to their Mom on the telephone and pray with her, for them.  Then, while we were home waiting to go pick-up D2 from the airport, I got an email from my doctor about my scan from Friday. He said it was all clear, no changes from the last scan.  That’s a huge deal for me and it makes me feel way better about the survivability of my disease.

Then we picked up D2 from the airport, put up the Christmas tree and made it to 6PM bible study, this week we wrapped up the year with a special fellowship at Mellow Mushroom.  Jesus drank beer I think. I hope he did anyway.

What a week!  I am so blessed!

Jessica Martin, college rock star from an earlier post, is now back in Huntsville having left Wallace State after one semester. She did well and transferred credits back to Calhoun Community College. Jessica unfortunately became pregnant soon after going off to college with her boyfriend LeAndre and she has moved home to be closer to family.

We know that God is at work in Jessica’s life and that this is His plan for her. Still, I was very disappointed by the news that she had become pregnant. Her journey through school was going to be hard enough without this new responsibility. Strangely to me, Jessica’s friends did not feel this way!

On her FB wall, they wrote messages of congratulations, several of them. They said things like “we always knew you’d make it” and “you always were the smart one!”. It took me a little while to reconcile these comments with what had just happened. Eventually, after talking to Jessica and some other smart people I learned that waiting until she was 19 to start her family was a first for her little community. In their minds, she HAD made it. She had attended college and waited until after school, albeit High School, to have a baby.

So there are lesson for me here. First, we must change expectations if there is to be lasting change. Jessica and her friends must come to expect more from themselves and for themselves than this. Second, when I first heard about the baby I was angry with Jessica. I know now that is wrong, anger is wrong. This is not a problem, it’s a new life that God is bringing into the world and he had plans for this child, and for his mother.

Our job is to love them both, unconditionally, and to try and guide them as best we can. Maybe the boy will graduate college. Maybe LeAndre will stay around and be a good role model. Maybe Jessica can defy the odds and finish at Calhoun. Maybe, maybe maybe. Nothing is certain except the lasting love of God, and with His help, the love we have for each other even in the midst of our challenges.

Beto is a high tech guru, writes his own blog (http://betoinmerida.wordpress.com) and is a second semester freshman at Universidad Anahuac Mayab in Merida Mexico.  Our group has helped Beto’s father Ezequiel with Beto’s tuition, but this year we needed to help way less than we expected.

Apparently Beto’s grades were SO GOOD that they gave him a 50% scholarship second semester!  He’s really smart apparently!

So Beto has a great family, his Mom and Dad are GREAT parents and support him and his brothers with a strong Christian home.  They attend Shalom Church in Merida and have started a mission church in nearby Dzitya.  We have helped a little with some construction funds and two work weeks by the Youth from First Pres.  But the Aguilar’s are there every week doing music and giving a message, helping out pastor Lorenzo.

Check out Beto’s blog and follow his progress.  It would be wonderful if you’d give him some encouragement!  Thanks in advance everyone!

It’s been my great privilege to be acquainted with the Parker family over the years.  Wayne and Lisa, Melissa, Elle, Davis and Riley are close enough to be family.  Our families have know each other for at least three generations, Wayne’s great aunt worked in my grandfather’s department store in the thirties.  Our daughters, Elle and Sarah, have danced together since they were four.

A few years ago Wayne told me that he had a friend with a program to bring the best students from Ethiopia to the United States for their Junior Year in High School.  The purpose was to give the kids a boost, to propel them to college in Ethiopia with some momentum.  Thousands of boys competed for a slot and no more than a few dozen were eventually placed.  One of the boys, Fasil, moved to Huntsville and moved in with the Parkers to start his junior year at Huntsville High. Today, three years later, Fasil has been at UAHuntsville for four semesters and, you’re not going to believe this, it looks like he’ll graduate in five.

Fasil was not supposed to spend his Senior Year in the US, the program called for him to return.  But Fasil did so well, no one wanted to interrupt his progress so he returned to complete his high school.  He was admitted to UAHuntsville in the engineering school and is doing amazingly well.  He has even challenged a few courses by taking the exam in lieu of actually sitting in the class!  Right now, he’s got an almost perfect grade point average and is about to graduate way early.

So why am I writing about Fasil?  Because some wonderful people have sponsored the cost of his education and it’s an example of the good that can be done if you’ll just allow yourself to be led.  Wayne asked me if I’d help and I said yes without thinking about it.  It Wayne was in I was in, that was easy.  Then I met Fasil and what an amazing guy.  He’s already a huge success story.  If you’d like to help with an aspiring college student’s support, just comment on this blog post or email privately.

Finally, a word from Fasil himself.  Wayne and I asked him to write a letter, to tell us in his own words what he was thinking.  Here it is:

Living in a lower income family in Ethiopia, I was able to have a firsthand experience of a hopeless medical system. Long lines of patients, waiting lists, very old and barely working medical equipment, always-full-with-patients hospitals, doctors who usually mis-prescribe medicines, pharmacies that don’t carry the right medicines are some of the problems that are prevalent in Ethiopia. According to the World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems, Ethiopia stood 180th out of 190 countries. Sure it looks difficult to solve all these problems and sure it looks even more difficult to solve them single handedly. But, dissecting the problems reveals some interesting facts. Most of the problems that are mentioned above are related in some way. It seems like all these problems branch out of one root. I believe permanently solving this root cause will diminish the related problems significantly. One might wonder what this mysterious cause of the problems is, but it is quite straightforward to notice. Ethiopia has a bad education system. Relatively few children go to school, and only a fraction of these students make it to the limited higher education institutions. The very few that make it through college end up leaving the country for a better living and never return. With no competent educated professionals left, the instructors in the colleges and universities are not so great. This means a slim chance that formidable doctors will be produced. Without qualified doctors, it is unlikely patients will be treated well the first time. Returning patients make the hospitals even more crowded. The need to treat overwhelming numbers of patients each day makes the doctors spend less time with each patient which means lower quality treatment. This cycle continues indefinitely.  I believe this cycle of misery can be broken, and I can help with that. Consider this, if we can have some quality instructors in Ethiopian medical schools, well educated doctors will be produced in higher quantities. This means patients will be treated effectively the first time and no more crowded hospitals. With fewer patients -more working force- the economy of the country will grow even faster and the history of the country will be changed for good. This is my hope and I believe this is the only way there can be a decent medical system in the country. A country can’t depend on missionaries and traveling doctors. We need to have a permanent source of qualified doctors and the only way to do that is to have good educators.

I am convinced that I am best suited for the above purpose for several reasons. First, I have seen how difficult it is to be sick in Ethiopia. My father died when I was five years old and because of the failure in the medical system, my family and I have no idea what my father died of. Further, my brother had a severe heart problem when he was little, and I, with the rest of the family, have seen how long the waitlist is in the emergency room, how rarely doctors treat patients correctly – my brother was first give a typhus medicine mistakenly- and all the related problems. Second, I have been given the opportunity to come to the US and study. If I could get enough support and finish college and hopefully go to a medical school, that means I will have gotten the quality education that I always wished Ethiopian doctors had. With such an education, I believe I can be one of the quality educators I mentioned as a solution for Ethiopia’s medical system. I have now spent three years in US school systems (11th grade at Huntsville High School and two years at the University of Alabama in Huntsville).  I have a 3.95 GPA in Electrical Engineering and plan to graduate after two more semesters. I study with the objective of learning as much as I can so that I can give back to my fellow brothers and sisters in Ethiopia.  I have done everything I could to succeed in school, and I am determined to pass through any difficulty that might stand in my way. I am thankful for the opportunities that I have had so far and I welcome any help to reach my goal.