Cancelled, busy day, sad day

I was scheduled to teach a class this morning but eventually the class got cancelled. That was actually kind of a blessing. My morning started off with my bathroom sink completely clogged. Fortunately, I was able to shift over to Mama’s sink to shave before I showered. When I got to the HQ house, I was not able to log onto the internet. When our IT personnel had reset my computer to a new cloud server for access to work documents last week, that wiped out all the shortcuts for log in credentials I had relied upon to access the networks at the office and at HQ. During the time I was waiting on someone to come online to help me – their workday does not start until 8 am – one of the two remaining attendees for the class today called to cancel. I had the young lady who was watching over the class to contact the lone participant and ask if he could reschedule. He agreed. Meanwhile, I waited on IT to respond to my plea for help. Finally, at 8:50 I was able to access the internet at the HQ house. I needed to get that hurdle conquered this morning so that I will be able to present a class tomorrow afternoon. Once that issue was settled, I stopped by the office to pick up some paperwork for several classes that were presented by a colleague last week and headed home since the office is closed to non-essential workers.

Yesterday was an unusually busy day for me. I am not sure how that worked out but by the time I got the many small, urgent work assignments settled, it was time to break for lunch. That rarely happens, but it was a nice way to fly through the morning. After lunch, with all the small crises passed, I had a couple large projects that swallowed up the afternoon just about as quickly. Mama chewed up my evening with the cleaning of the pig building to prepare it to house the two girl goat babies in order to wean them. We will allow their little brother to remain with his mama for a few weeks to see if he will get the chance to nurse in the absence of his sisters. He has largely been denied access to her milk and that may continue but we wanted to try out this arrangement.

Mama and I are debating whether or not I should go to church this evening. The requested time apart post exposure is still 10 days, regardless of how I personally feel about the arbitrarily chosen cautionary measures. Mama is symptom free. I am symptom free. There is less than miniscule chance for us to be infectious. Plus, both of us are treating prophylactically with over-the-counter meds as well as herbal supplements and vitamin additions to our diet. We have done very well so far, especially with the volume of exposure Mama had during her time with Grandma, Grandpa and Norman. Those in our church that have gotten sick seem to all be recovering from that sickness without any medical intervention. When we realize as a society that this virus is easily treatable outside of a questionable shot commonly and erroneously referred to as a vaccine, we could all get on with our lives. But sadly, we are still not there yet. Maybe after the 2022 elections are over.

On the sad side, we received work that one of the elderly ladies in our church passes away this morning. I know that her husband has a light case of Covid, but the prayer request did not mention the cause of her death. We have three other elderly ladies about the same age who have not attended church since March of 2020 for fear of Covid. Living in fear is a sad way to live regardless of what drives that fear. I feel sad for them, but there is no comfort I can provide to them. As stated above perhaps we will move ahead with effective treatments for the virus and begin to live again sometime in the near future.

Cori is sick with a virus of some sort as well. She does not believe it is Covid. Now three of the kids are sick along with her. For Cori, this is a continuation on a long string of health issues that have challenged her immune system over the past three months. She is ready to feel well again. Several of the children and young adults at the home in El Progresso are sick or recovering. This has been a particularly pervasive bout of whatever is causing their illnesses. Our prayers continue for her, for her family and for their ministry. This is another situation where I wish we could provide more help or consolation, but we are limited in doing so. Instead, we pray that our God would do so in a way that more than makes up for our lack of ability to do so.

Regardless of our circumstance, we serve a wonderful God!