Community meeting at 5:30 AM.  Our neighbors.

Tuesday morning of this week I awoke at around 5 AM to someone banging on our door.  Some of the neighborhood teenagers were going around waking people up to remind them to come to the meeting at 5:30 AM.  An interesting thing about living here is the world is up and going by 5:00 and the people are very busy by 5:15 AM.  I walked down the road for a meeting about the coming electrical engineers and the need to have a reception for them (I think if someone is coming to do public works in a community – like install power transformers – the community is responsible to welcome them with a party, hopefully with lots of Cuy!)  As I sat there, trying to understand what was going on, I was able to watch how everyone interacted with one another.  They joked and teased, got frustrated with some situations, some came with a voice of reason, others just wanted to get the meeting over with as quickly as possible.  It was just like a meeting back home.  And I will tell you that I was convicted of my pride during this meeting.  I see patients all day long, The physician-patient relationship is unequal, with power on the doctor’s side of the equation.  And that has colored how I have seen the people here.  They come to me with needs and desires, in a position of weakness, hoping for help.  And so I feel superior, like I know better and have all the answers.  Yet at this meeting, I was in a position of equality or even weakness since I cannot understand everything perfectly, and I saw that they act just like I would if I was in a similar situation.  We are all equal.  We have cultural differences, but those are small differences in comparison to the ways in which we are the same.  So I am asking God to help me to see them how they really are, not how I see them in the hospital.  I want to see myself as I really am, not in the way my position in the hospital elevates my status.  I am asking God to help me to be humble in my interactions with the people that we are serving so that we can possibly have friendships that are genuine.  I am asking God to help me to be like Christ.