Free Discount Bananas ProTip: Do not mess with your pancreas. Do not let anything else mess with your pancreas. The pancreas is pretty anti-social and does not play well with strangers.

But who can blame it? The digestive system hired it on for one activity and one activity only: crank out the juices that let you digest, which in turn let you live. The pancreas is like the one grill cook at HuHot that doesn't screw around talking to the other lazy dudes who are joking with each other and burning your food. Pancreas is the silent guy flying around with the flinging spatulas, focused on one thing, getting crap DONE. Literally. If you throw something on this guy, say, a virus, while he's trying to work, he gets pretty PO'd and goes all stabby.

Such was the lesson whose beginning came last Friday afternoon when I casually mentioned to one of my students that "my tummy has not been kind to me" before we launched on a 4 & 1/2 hour road trip to Oklahoma. I was still okay and figured it was just "a thing" that would pass quickly. It got worse through Friday night and I figured I was finally being hit with the flu that has been wreaking havoc on every living creature in my vicinity. I stayed in bed all day Saturday while my students enjoyed the campus ministry conference I had worked so hard to get them to. I chugged some newly acquired NyQuil and tried to sleep, finally heading back with the group in a semi-comatose state that night.

Sunday rolled around, and so did I, almost in the fetal position from the four foot serrated knife that was slowly being drawn in and out of my abdomen. I figured I would try to pull through to Monday and say a prayer about getting into a doctor to get something for this "flu." Finally agony won out and I had a friend take me to the ER (thanks for being a trooper, Lauren).

I figured the ER folks would yawn, throw me some pain meds and a prescription, and escort me to the street like their thousands of other flu victims. But instead I was met with quizzical looks and continuous poking, pushing, and prodding. After getting some "8" (actually I couldn't bring myself to say it and wimped out with "7", which I discovered works just as well) and a field trip down to the CT Scan room, the official determination was "your pancreas is broke." Or something like that. I don't know, I was enjoying the "8."

Many things can break the pancreas. Heavy drinking being one. Gallstones being another. Less common is stuff like a viral infection. Seeing as how a glass of wine has been my biggest alcohol binge in the last couple of months, and there were no indications of a gall bladder problem, it looked more and more like some kind of freak virus that snuck in when no one was looking. Regardless of the cause, the immediate treatment when anything goes haywire around the pancreas is to immediately shut off all access to the oral cavity. For those of you with PhDs in anatomy and physiology, you understand that the "oral cavity" is the mouth, and those of you with lesser degrees probably comprehend the fact that the mouth is where food goes for most. Those of you who have degrees in Deductive Reasoning probably get that this means the treatment for anything having to do with the pancreas is a heavy regimen of absolutely no food. Also, water = food.

Now, this was no shock because the pancreas apparently invokes a natural road block to food by shutting off the apetite when as it goes into panic mode. Thus, I had not had anything to eat since that previous Friday night, save for a small tortilla on Saturday night because I felt the obligation to put something in me, if not the desire. But apparently this is mostly a component of the pain, because once that glorious morphine went to work and the sirens were shut down, suddenly I could hear the stomach screaming. But it would not be tended to in the least until Tuesday at noon. Therefore, total diet from 5:30pm Friday until 12:00pm Tuesday: one tortilla and a few cups of orange juice and water. And two cups of delicious red CT scan dye.

What I thought was going to be an in and out process suddenly became a three day hospital adventure. My first ever, by the way. I've been to the ER for myself before but never have I been invited to stay among the halls of the sickhouse.

So, anyway, I'm tired of writing today so I'll just say TO BE CONTINUED....

These are the people I'm paid to hang out with.



A balmy 23.9 degrees on the night of Friday the 13th.

Gossip and cynicism is the most deadly form of cancer that attacks the Kingdom of God.

It must be identified and destroyed before it kills entire communities.

More on this to come.

I usually read CNN.com every morning. Just now I pulled it up to see the featured front page story:

Party like it's 1929

Jasmine Rocha got a budget lesson when planning her quinceañera, the 15th birthday celebration that represents a rite of passage to womanhood for Latinas. "It was very hard because sometimes the stuff that I wanted, it wasn't able to come through," said the teen from Dallas, Texas. The battered economy is taking a toll on everything from birthday soirees to bar mitzvahs. full story

Is this really the story of the hurting economy? We're just not able to party like we used to? A friend of mine works in a state-funded office and had to watch many of her co-workers leave in tears the other day as their sole source of income was yanked from them. Lives are being totally financially devastated by what is happening - many families are searching for a way to not go under - and the story is about weddings and celebrations having to be downsized? So far my job is secure - I even got a raise for this year - and I'm put off by an angle like this. I can't imagine having just come home, pink slip in hand, and pulling up a story bemoaning the fact that some 15 year old girls aren't able to have the dress they want.

I do believe that this illustrates how rich we ultimately continue to be, even in the midst of an economic downturn and many people losing their jobs. Truthfully, even many who are now jobless continue to be much better off in their lifestyles than a majority of the rest of the world who do have employment. I hope that we can keep a perspective on this. When we start to get depressed over the dents in our wealth, we simply need to remember that people the world over would give anything to live like us. We have peace. We have predictability. We have shelter and food, even when things are tougher than they used to be. We have protection. This may sound arrogant, but I have found that most of our impoverished and homeless in America have more provision than the average person in large parts of the third world. Keeping this at the top of our mind is what can make things like smaller weddings seem very trvial as a problem to be faced.

We have been given much. We have built a wealthy society... a wealth that truly permeates, even if you are on the low end of the ladder in America. Let's not forget this, and focus on the real problems.

Every now and then I come face to face with the sobering realization that I know very little about life and the world.

On Friday night I had the privilege of spending some time with a woman named Solange. Solange is a Ph.D student at K-State. This is not entirely remarkable in and of itself, except for the fact that just less than three years ago she couldn't speak a word of English and lived in poverty in Rwanda, Africa.

What is more striking is the fact that she is alive. And that through the most horrific experiences of death, evil, murder, blood, deception, betrayal, and loss, she has found a joyous faith in God.

I have spent the last several days recovering from the world that she drew me into for over three hours. This woman sat across the table from me, the bowl of jambalaya sitting untouched in front of her, and wove a tale of her life that I think is ultimately unimaginable for any white, middle-class American.

It would be impossible for me to recount the entire story of Solange's experiences. She, like almost everyone in Rwanda over 15 years years old, experienced the horrific murder of almost one million people in an ethnic purge in 1994. Solange was 19 years old at the time her father and several siblings were killed. She escaped with her brother through an elaborate network of connections, but would ultimately see him murdered as well after being betrayed by the man enlisted to help them. She was captured but escaped death herself by deception. She came close to killing a man in his sleep. She was trapped in a house with her father's killers - men who described the details of his death in front of her, not knowing she was his daughter. She saw close family friends turn into ravenous killers. She saw husbands murder their own wives and children. But she lived. She was beaten brutally day after day at one point, but she lived.

She would survive the genocide a bitter, scared young woman. She was encouraged to return to school but her only interests were learning practical skills like driving a car and riding a bike - things that would help her escape should the killers come again. She eventually began schooling again and encountered a man who introduced her to faith in God - something that gave her entirely new lenses through which to see her story. From there she took in twelve street children to her home and gave them lives. The Fullbright scholarship people would eventually find her and provide her the opportunity to study in the United States. But she knew only enough English to memorize answers overnight to questions a friend thought she would be asked in her interview. She was then plucked from Rwanda and sent to California, and now to K-State where she studies animal science. She longs to return to her country upon her degree completion and continue the mission of redemption to her people.

In about two and a half months I will be journeying to the place where Solange experienced the horror that would shape the fabric of her life. But I will also being going to a place where God has been redeeming people like Solange from bitterness, revenge, fear, and poverty. I am going to a place where hundreds of people like Solange are going to change me forever and introduce me to stories of life that I never could have even begun to imagine on my own. Yes, what we will be doing there will be good for the people and will help them in many ways, but I fully expect that this will be a place where I will do a majority of the learning. I imagine that three hours at the dinner table will only be a taste of what is to come.