Paul's PNG Mission Trip - Ep 15

[pandrews]

(January 24th, 2010)

The past two months have been quite exciting: A trip to Madang, then
back to the U.S.A. for Christmas, and to see my girlfriend (who I'm
happy to announce is now my fiancée) and through all this I'm
continually amazed how different life can be in the world we live in.
On the one hand, technology seems to be so convenient and helpful on a
daily basis: Need directions to the restaurant? Just Google it on
your
GPS enabled phone and follow the directions.

All this added 'convenience' does have it's downside as you're always
being distracted with some other form of stimulus: hand held games,
text
messages, random internet searches... We, in America, are being over
stimulated with constant entertainment. It seems that no one can keep
their concentration for more than thirty seconds. Is this really the
world that we want to live in?

But PNG is different isn't it? Not exactly. We recently (Late
October)
got a satellite internet setup at the hospital in Mambis. This on top
of the cellular phone epidemic sweeping the nation means that more and
more places are connected. The big push now that I've returned has
been
getting the internet deployed to the hospital staff. Unfortunately,
most of the people here haven't used a computer before and there's a
steep learning curve: terminology, software, typing, viruses... The
last
category drives me bonkers.

Just before I left to travel to the states I was helping out the local
high school teachers with their personal computers when one laptop,
which was virtually unusable, landed in my lap. After a scan from a
REAL piece of software (the software previously being used was
actually
another virus) the report came back informing me that there were 2,500
separate virus files on this computer.

After hours of work, the laptop was unable to boot and the only option
was to wipe the hard drive and start from scratch. If I'd have done
that from the beginning I would have saved myself lots of time and
frustration... Maybe that's why God choose to wipe our sins away with
Jesus' blood. He didn't try to 'fix' what was clearly broken, He
started with a clean slate.

Anyone that's worked with computers knows how stubborn some viruses
can
be to clean off of a computer, and God doesn't waste our time trying
to
patch a faulty file, He puts a clean one in it's place. When we open
our hearts to Him, he throws out all the bad, all the sin, all the
viruses and starts over with us. He doesn't do this just once, he
does
it continually. And what's better, He doesn't get frustrated when we
come back the next week with the exact same virus... I certainly can't
say the same.

Ready for the corny ending?: Don't try to patch your own broken
heart,
let God format your life with His perfect will. Install His love in
your life so that through your good works others might see His love,
and
in turn, His love be installed on theirs.

Fund-raising: If you've made it this far, I would invite you to
support
my mission trip in any way that seems fit: Through prayers, telling
others what you know, forward these emails, share my blog site, or
donate financially. Any way that you choose to be apart of this
mission
trip is graciously accepted.

Paul Andrews
Blog: http://zloof.blogspot.com/
Donate: http://www.lcms.org/?14786
(note: the new amount for this year (until June) is roughly $10,000,
not
the $18,500 reported on the link)