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Expectations

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Yesterday, we read day 6 of Live Dead.  In the journal entry, Jennifer Brogden recounts the challenges she faced when she moved to the Sudan and the all sufficiency of Jesus Christ.  She then challenged us to write what it means to "live dead."  Because I can, I want to alter this and respond about my expectations of living dead in the context of medical missions.  Without further adu, my response to expectations is:

I expect it to be hot
I expect that many families will be really appreciative of my work, much more than the average patient in the United States
I expect that we will be persecuted
I expect that we will suffer from various diseases
I expect to be humbled
I expect that I will have to be flexible; that things will routinely not work out the way I planned
I expect natural disasters to be devastating
I expect to be taken advantage of financially
I expect to have to fight my pride on a daily basis
I expect that at times I will feel alone
I expect that I will miss my family and friends
I expect that I will miss Laporta's pizza
I expect that I will have to fight fear for the safety of my son constantly
I expect language classes to feel impossible and frustrating
I expect communicating to be demoralizing and challenging
I expect spiritual warfare
I expect being surrounded with poverty and dealing with guilt over whatever I make, even if it is much less than I could make in the States
I expect to see children with complicated medical problems I've never seen previously; I expect that I will often not no what to do
I expect to see children who die of diseases that would be easily treated in the United States
I expect to see much more death than I've seen here
I expect that I will have more joy there than I do here
I expect that I will feel at home, and that Christ will give me peace even amongst tribulation
I expect to grow closer to Him
I expect to grow closer to my family
I expect to learn a lot

Most of all:
I expect that Jesus Christ will be enough is abundance, and will be abundance for us wherever we end up, that His love is the best thing I know, and it will be more easily realized when my entire life/career is focused on serving Him

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