Emergency Medical Life

Anyone who’s lost a loved one knows the level of support that shows up out of nowhere. People who you've barely talked to in years take time to say that they are thinking of you or they offer themselves to help if you need it. When we were attacked on 9/11 it was no different. Those of us who lost someone received a lot of messages and support from just about everyone we were connected with.

But there is another part that seems to have been overlooked. In the same way we were rushing to support our friends, America had hundreds of other countries offering support and love. When I was doing some research on this I found literally hundreds of memorials from around the world. Some were gifted to the United States from foreign countries and placed on American soil. Others were erected on foreign soil. Some are small, no bigger than a chair, others are huge.

The size of the memorial doesn't really matter, the point is that they exist. They tell us that this didn't just affect us, it affected the whole world. We were not alone in the world when we were hurt.

Here is a site that has a few of the memorials. Instead of flooding you dozens of links. These are just a few that are out there.

So I just spent the last week with 38 other crazy people building houses in Juarez Mexico. It was an amazing trip thus far. I'll post a link to the blog if anyone is interested in a little further reading. This is my 7th trip to Mexico to build houses and every trip has its own unique experiences but this trup has been especially meaningful to me. I really didn't realize how much I had lost track of the important things in life until thing pretty much hit the fan the last few weeks of February. I had gotten really bad tunnel vision and had done a pretty good job about tricking myself in what I thought was important. When things went south I was really looking forward to just getting away.

This trip has once again flipped my life upside down... again... God is pretty talented at doing that when we need a kick in the pants. This year the guy we were building for wasn't looking for a house but looking for a place to help others in need and do ministry. One thing he told us really stuck with me. He said we all need to have something to share with the world. That really hit a note with me. I really began to realize how lazy I had become as a Christian.

I thought a lot about that. And I had to look at myself and try to remember who I really was. Why I do what I am doing what I do? Why am I the way I am? Who am I? These are all things that actually started to haunt me a little. I was loosing the person I was. At that moment it was like a voice in my head spoke up and said "hope."

Now normally hearing a voice in my head would be cause for a little concern but this was more of a feeling. And I just kept thinking why I work in EMS and why I like helping people. Its because I'm passionate about serving and helping people. I want to be able to give those who think they are hopeless a little shimmer of hope. I want to be able to comfort people who are hurting. I started to put this all together as well as remembering how my coworkers and friends helped me when I was hurting and felt hopeless.

I realized that no matter how broken you think you are, you are never too broken to be put back together. No matter how hurt you feel, you can always be healed. No matter how lost you are you can always be healed. No one is a lost cause, everyone can be healed, found and given hope. I wish it never came to the point where I felt lost, broken and hopeless but I'm realizing that in order to build you up sometimes God has to break down the walls to your foundation to build you they way you should be.

I'm so amazingly blessed to have Mexico be in my life, and I can't get over how awesome this group of people is. Even though so many where unaware they made a huge impact on my life. And the amount of love and support I've received from many of my friends and coworkers makes me so humble. Like I said, I really wish I didn't have to rediscover myself, but I'm really glad I found the road to the old me.

Sorry this is been such a long rambling post but its hard to organize my thoughts sometimes and while most of this will fall under the TL;DR (too long didn't read) category glad that you read a little. I hope anyone reading this can take something from it so they don't have to face what I went through.

So one thing about me is I am a bit of a nerd. I like exploring, space, and science things like that. As such I've been watching a couple space science shows on Netflix lately and something really caught my attention. When NASA was testing out the equipment for the Curiosity Mars Rover mission they had to come to a difficult realization, they had to make something fail. This came up when they were testing the parachute for the Rover. The first test was a success with no issues. The second test (just for good measure) was a catastrophic failure. Because the first test had gone so well they opted to not record in high speed the second test. After the chute failed they tried to find the cause but without the high speed cameras they needed more data. It took 20 more tests that were all a perfect success before they had another one fail. One of the engineers said he had never been so frustrated in his life trying to get something to fail only to have it work flawlessly. 

We don't often think about how we can fail, It's not something that we really like to do. But failing is a part of life, there's a chance of failing in everything we do. The NASA team knew this and knew it was important to know why something failed instead of just saying "Well there's a very small chance so lets not worry about it." Understanding failures in our lives is a key part of being successful.