At the nursing home today we got to meet with several of the people we've talked to the last few days and see how they were doing and pray for them again since a few were having a rough day today. We ended up finishing early though and decided to just roam the halls in the wing where our other team was working and just see if there was anyone in the halls we could talk to. We immediately ran into this gentleman wearing a veterans hat decorated with all kinds of awards and decals and started up a conversation with him. He told us a little about what the different awards on his hat were for and about his childhood, his children, and grandchildren. We could easily see that there was a lot of bitterness in his heart towards his kids because of the decisions they'd made in life and how they were treating him, but he obviously didn't want to talk about it much and so we let him redirect the conversation to one of his experiences in war. In my opinion it was one of the coolest stories i've heard, even though all they did was steal 3 cases of wine and 2 quarts of apricot nectar (i believe). By the time he finished his story it was time for us to go, but I would love to be able to go and speak with him again tomorrow. I feel like our conversations have been really short, without much deviation from the set questions we were given which has kind of upset me because you can tell that some people are really just wanting to sit and talk. But due to that i've been thinking about going to the VA every so often when I get home and sitting and talking with the people there now that i'm a little more comfortable with talking. Then I can sit and talk with people for as long as they are wanting to talk. So maybe its a God thing that i've noticed this because maybe theres someone that needs to hear the gospel or just have someone to talk to back home.
We had a speaker come in this morning and talk to us about people with psychiatric disorders and how to help them and interact with them. This man literally had me writing 90 to nothing. He had so much knowledge to share that I didn't want to miss a single thing. For most of our speakers i've taken about a page, front and back, of notes but for this lecture I have about 4 pages front and back. You could just see his wisdom and his compassion for people, and he really wanted us to understand that people with psychiatric disorders are people too and should be treated as such, along with a few extra details of course. I know i've always been fascinated by how the brain works and i've especially been fascinated by psychiatric disorders, so this talk was right up my alley. It also got me wondering if my strong interest in this topic is maybe a clue God has given me to help lead me to the right major or career. I didn't do well in my General Psychology class this last semester because I made some really dumb decisions to skip class some mornings and missed numerous assignments which not even my good grades on tests could make up for. So i've been kinda embarrassed to venture back into the psychology department, mainly because I really don't want to run into the grad student who taught our class. But i've always been fascinated by it. So could it be that I might actually need to consider it, and the devil is just using my guilt and regret for how I acted last semester to deter me from doing what God wants me to do? Who knows, but i'm going to be praying about that too now!
On a less serious and much lighter note, we had pictures today so i'm going to leave several of pictures from my trip; not just from today but from the entire trip so far. I hope you enjoy them!
Welcome to Redlands!!
Palm tree drive! There are palm trees EVERYWHERE here
Found this cool map of the states made out of license plates at Wrightwood. They're obviously missing a few.
First day going to the nursing homes!!
The food here was beyond amazing. And it was always healthy!
My dress shoes hated me this. 1 of 4 blisters received from this trip so far...
I made some friends with the wild life. This little guy just appeared on my shorts and decided to hang out for a while :)
University of Redlands: our home for the past 6 days. Unfortunately we didn't stay in this awesome building but the apartments we are in are pretty awesome too. Here's all the preceptors (aka our mentors) getting ready for their group picture
The Pre-Pro girls!! And Jan....
More palm trees! and a sunset :)
The view from the building we were taking our pictures at!
“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12)
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