Thanksgiving Greetings

I have started writing down little notes to myself of things that I think might be interesting to write about.  Sometimes as I prepare to write these emails I think, . . . uh nothing really different happened this week.  I often forget to mention things that are super common but might be interesting to know about if you have never been deployed or in the military.  This week my list looked like this:
                                                          Water/Smoke
                                                           Letters
                                                           Rockets
                                                           Home teacher shelves
                                                           Parable of the girl
So about water,  I previously included a photo of the trucks that drive around base pumping out the septic tanks that with 50000 people regularly need emptying.  There are trucks labeled clean water, grey water and black water.  None of the water on base that comes out of the taps is potable.  You can shower in it and brush your teeth with it but we are repeatedly warned to never drink it.  Someone also told me never get it in your eyes.  I didn't ask questions but I can tell you I keep my eyes tight shut in the shower.  So the grey water is the water that goes down the drains in the sinks and showers. Black water is the water that goes down the toilets.  If you are ever walking down the street near a black water truck and you have gum in your mouth just spit it out because if you don't it will have a new flavor after you walk by and it is not a flavor you would want to be chewing on.  The black water trucks drive their loads to a big burn pit where they are emptied into hug trenches.  After a few days the water has dried up and the leftovers are burned along with all of our other garbage.  On burn days depending on the direction of the wind the air may be filled with a ghastly smelling smoke.  I have been assured that there are no long term detrimental health effects to breathing poop smoke but then again these are the guys that lined submarines with asbestos.
    Letters.  When we receive our mail and have read the letters and emptied the boxes we have to 'sanitize'  them.  This means that you have to cut out the sender and receiver address labels and shred them and then burn them at the same burn pit the poop is burned in.  The idea is that you do not want the addresses of loved ones getting into the wrong hands.  Our garbage is handled by the local nationals and there is ample evidence that they routinely go through it.  I doubt that most of them are looking for addresses but I wanted to assure everyone out there that I properly sanitize all of my mail so write away.
    Rockets.  Yesterday at about 5:45 am my pager went off along with all the other pagers in our room.  The message read "IDF attack, take cover", this page was followed by the loud voice outside saying the same thing.  We rolled out of bed and got on our bellies.  We lay there for about 10 minutes while rocket after rocket hit the ground with a loud rumble.  All in all there were 10 rockets that hit somewhere on the base but none hit anything important and there were no injuries.  My main purpose in recounting this story is not to scare anyone but to make a point.  Once the active rocketing was over essential personnel have to report to their stations in the hospital to prepare for incoming casualties.  As an aside, I have always taken casualty to be a death but in the military any injury however minor as a result of an attack is a casualty. Anyway, we line up at the dorm building and are released in groups of five to run across the street and into the hospital.  I have talked about rocket attacks before.  It is a fairly routine occurrence.  The protocol is that you put on your body armor including your helmet before going outside.  I was surprised that about one in five people were wearing the PT uniform which is a sweat suit and nothing else.  I think that because this happens so often they have just become desensitized to the danger that exists.  They have decided not to put on their armor, reasoning that nearly always the rockets don't come close to hurting anyone.  Such was the case about a month before I got here when a rocket hit a bus stop.  Five people ignored the warning to take cover and three were killed.  In war and in life we can never forget that someone is out there looking for an opportunity to take your life whether spiritual or physical.  You can never let down your guard or leave your armor at home.  Do the little things and the big things will take care of themselves.  P.S. IDF stands for Indirect Fire.
     Home Teacher Shelves.  When we moved from Utah to San Antonio, my dad and two oldest brothers came to help drive the trucks and move us in.  We built some shelves in the garage to hold tools and camping stuff.  About two weeks after I deployed to Afghanistan I received a text from my wife. It went something like this:
---Your car has another dent in the hood.  (Last year I was in the garage trying to pull a cast iron dutch oven off the shelf and it fell 8 feet onto my new car's hood.)  The shelves in the garage fell down any your tool box landed on it.
   Most of you know that after daylight savings I am 10.5 hours ahead of Central time in the states.  When I got the message I called Cami to figure out what we could do to fix the problem.  By the time I got a hold of her our incredible home teacher, Alan Nelson, had come over and not only fixed the shelves but made them bionic.  As we enter this season of gratitude I recalled this experience.  It will ever be part of my testimony of the home teaching program of the church.  For those unfamiliar with what this is, in the LDS church each family is typically assigned two individuals who watch over that family.  They make a monthly visit, share a spiritual message and assess the needs of the family.  This is how the Lord uses others to shepherd his sheep.  I am grateful to Alan and the other great people that have looked after the needs of my family not only while I am here but always.
     The parable of the girl. I shared this experience with a couple of people earlier this week but it has stuck with me and I wanted to share it with everyone.  There was an eight year old girl brought in to the hospital by her grandfather for surgery on a tumor behind her right ear. It started out as a small minor infection easily treated in the states.  Left untreated the infection had spread and festered and created a huge mass which needed to be surgically removed.  It was obvious that she did not want to be there. She clung to her grandfather and would not let him go. When it became clear to her that there was no escaping being separated from him she made a desperate bid for freedom and leaped off of the gurney she was sitting on. The interpreter caught her and carried her writhing tiny frame into the operating room. This little girl was filthy. The kind of dirty that doesn't come off when you wipe the skin, dirt that is caked layers deep. It looked as though she was several months out from having her head shaved from an uncontrolled lice infestation. She thrashed and kicked as many of us tried to calm her down. She screamed in Dari, the dialect they speak here, "I don't want to have surgery, I just want my grandfather, I just want my grandfather!" We had no choice but to place the anesthesia mask over her face and allow her to scream and gulp down the anesthesia gas. As three of us held her down to keep her from hurting herself, she looked frantically around for eyes in which she could find solace. She didn't find any. She shook with great wracking sobs. Within seconds she was asleep. As primitively as these people live and as archaic as we find some of their customs there are strong bonds of love that connect these people together. This little girl found comfort and safety in the arms of this wise old man who had been there for her throughout her life.

As I looked at her tiny body now limp I thought of myself.  Of the tiny course alterations I have made from the strait and narrow path, things that could have easily been corrected at the outset and made right.  Left untreated they fester into character traits opposite those of God.  They become festering pustules of sin that cause us and those around us incredible pain and suffering.  We fight against the physician of our souls who knows what we need and that it will be painful but in the long term it will free us from the suffering and pain. Sometimes we kick and scream our way through life thrashing around resisting the very thing that will heal us. God is good and patient and loving. We can find safety, confidence and trust in His ever extended arms. Sometimes we just have to stop fighting and look for His face, I promise you that it is ALWAYS there.

     This Thanksgiving season I pray that you will each find yourselves surrounded by those you love.  List freedom from tyranny and oppression among your blessing.  Thank God for shoes for your feet and bread on your table.  I have been exceedingly humbled by the conditions I have witnessed here.  The poorest of the poor in America has more than 95% of the rest of the world.  It is easy to focus on that which we lack but when our hearts are full of gratitude life is better, brighter and filled with God's love.  I love you all.  Each of you will be on my mind as I thank God for my blessings.  I have so much.