Medical and MMA

I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a completely normal day in India.  Instead of our normal rotation, all of us went to medical today.  I guess the construction on campus wasn't ready until tomorrow, and so they just decided to have us all go together.  It was to a colony I hadn't been to before where another foundation has done a lot of construction and so they have some nicer houses (again according to leper colony standards).  I was in charge of taking their pulse and blood pressure with Chanelle.  It was really an easy thing, but it was great to see all the different people, and how happy they were.  The highlight of my day came when I was helping one patient, Joseph, through the different stations.  See, Joseph doesn't have feet, and he's mostly blind and deaf.  So Ray and I picked him up and set him in the very rudimentary wheelchair they had and rolled him from station to station.  But we were all surprised by his spirit.  The whole time he sang songs and prayed, and even though it was in Tamil, and I couldn't communicate with him verbally, I knew that he was singing from his heart.  Since he didn't have feet, his ulcers were on his hands.  He teared up when they were cutting the dead skin off from around the ulcer, and all I could do was put hand on his shoulder and hope that he knew I cared.

That's my hand on his shoulder.  Ashley's cleaning his ulcers, and Ray's the one holding up the water tray.  It was wonderful how understanding everyone was in adapting to each persons individual needs.  I love the Indian people, and I love my group of volunteers.

For family time this evening, the pillow fight was requested again.  Only this time more people were involved, and I was the primary target.  And of course, since there were only 3 or 4 pillows, fists were involved, too (not mine, I promise).  It was lots of fun.  After a while, our pillow fight turned into something akin to MMA (mixed martial arts), and 4 of the boys took their shirts off and were showing off their muscles and wrestling skills.  I have the best group of guys. Perhaps some pictures will illustrate tonight's events better.

Steven was in charge of all the pictures this evening.  He did a really good job.  I feel like this is a great action shot.

My primary weapon was not pillows, but tickling.  The kids are all so ticklish!  And of course you can see the pillow being swung at my face.

This one's my favorite.  This is after the fighting began, and they wanted a picture, and they told me to flex.  These are three of the muscular men in my family.









These next few are just awesome.

Yup, those are my boys.