On a Bill Hybels DVD, he describes holding dinners for friends where they discuss their “high and low” over the past week. In the States, we often did this with our college/career-age Bible study group. It’s an excellent way to get a snap shot of the important things going on in someone’s life. I’ve been doing this with my Ethiopian friends lately to try to get more of a feel for what their day to day lives look like. Life tends to be very high and very low here. Not much just coasting along even keel, as we found often to be the case in the US. Someone we know lost his wife and unborn child a few days ago after they were run over by a semi truck on the road. Another close friend lost her brother-in-law suddenly to some unknown illness a few weeks ago, just a few months after losing a sister to a similar sudden illness. Death is a very real and constant part of life to most of our Ethiopian friends.

The thing about asking someone their high and low over the past week is you have to be ready to share your own. My own high for this past week was taking the graduating CRNA (nurse anesthetists) class out to a congratulatory lunch. I have been working closely with them for the past nine months and have seen them grow and learn. I couldn’t be prouder of what they have accomplished. Most of them will go back hundreds of miles to their home hospitals to practice and share what they have learned. I will likely never see them again, but I feel very privileged to have been a part of their lives for a time.

My low for the week was saying goodbye to Azemeraw – the autistic patient at CURE that was abandoned by his parents. He went to the Mother Theresa Charity. Please keep him in your prayers. He still has some superficial open wounds on his legs and, more than that, a wounded heart after being left by his family.

Psalm 147:3-5 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.