Dr. Laura?

It’s December 20. I’m sitting on my niece’s bed, listening to my sister read her a story before bed time. I look at the time (9:00 pm) and start thinking I should probably head home soon.

At 9:04 my mom calls me. The call went something like this:

Laura – “Hey”

Mom – “Hey. Umm. I cut my hand really bad and I think you need to come take me to the hospital.”

Laura – *long pause* “. . . Umm. . . Okay.” *Thinking the drive to my house, being 30 minutes, could be cut in half if we could both meet at the hospital* “Can you drive yourself to the hospital?”

Mom – “Uh, no.”

Heather – “Whats going on?”

Laura – “She cut her hand and needs to go to the hospital.”

Heather/Laura – *Both make that face like ‘ouch’ and ‘semi-freak out’*

Laura – “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can”

I sped to my house with full intention to get a cop to escort me if he somehow tried to pull me over. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

I ran into the house. The dogs greeted me as they always do, and I’m sure if they could speak they would tell me that mom was severely injured.

There it was. A broken ceramic knife sticking out of an over sized can of green beans. The culprit. And there was the 3/4 inch long cut on my mom’s hand. I will spare you the photo, but trust me, it was one of those cuts that sent that queasy feeling from your head to your toes. It definitely needed stitches.

Still in “mission mode,” I helped her wrap the cut up and sped to the hospital.

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The emergency room. Not as crazy as you would think it would be. There is actually a waiting room, and it was fairly calm.

They immediately bandaged my mom up with proper bandaging (our “tissue paper wrapped up in packing tape bandage-job” apparently wasn’t good enough). Took her blood pressure and all that jazz and we waited for about 45 minutes until she was called into a room for a doctor to look at the cut.

While we were sitting there, we discussed the Ted Dekker book I was reading and my mom’s life as an OR assistant in training. I was taking in the life of those who work in the ER and OR and what goes on at hospitals. I also thought of that time I played “nurse” when Sarah was sick at the studio (quite a story – only told in person). I enjoyed studying Anatomy and Physiology in high school. My own migraine issues and multiple friend’s issues with chronic pain have always interested me. At some point I thought to myself, “Working in a hospital would be pretty cool.” Medical work runs in my family, so it’s odd that I didn’t get into it in the first place. I’m the artsy one, along with my cousins of the same generation. I do video editing work. “But can’t I do both?” I thought to myself.

While in the room where the stitching preparation was happening, I had the opportunity to assist the nurse in setting up the table. She had come in with her gloves already on and had completely forgot that she needed to open the betadine and saline solution and pour them into the tray. She asked me to do it. 🙂 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s really not THAT big of a deal, but I did assist.

Then I watched as the doctor shot my mom’s hand up with numbing solution and stitched her up. It’s somewhat similar to cross stitching, except your dealing with flesh, not fabric.

During the down time, I was texting my sister about what kind of hospital work I could get into without going through nursing school or medical school. With each new piece of the stitching process, I found myself wanting to get into some sort of medical field. Heather told me that getting EMT certified was the quickest way into the medical field. Perhaps that could work. I have to find some sort of work out in Salt Lake City other than video editing if I want to eat and live in an apartment.

So for now this is just a seed planted in my mind. Who knows what it will grow to be. Dr. Laura?

Disciple-maker “formula”

These thoughts have been building themselves since my decision to go to Salt Lake. A friend of mine was recently challenged to really think deeply and ask herself if she was a disciple maker. This friend is also deeply considering going out to Salt Lake City with Plant4theGospel, and life is going to be very difficult in the initial launch. Evangelistically that is.

After this talk, I also felt challenged. Am I a disciple maker? You could look at my weekly schedule at a church and say “Of course you are, Laura!” But giving the gospel and talking gospel to church people is easy gospel living for me because the opportunities are flooding to me. I’m not necessarily flooding to opportunities. In fact, I don’t. I hardly continue the discipleship I began at Northland Camp. Anyone I meet on the road and begin a some sort of discipleship conversation with, I rarely follow up with. I don’t always invite the Starbucks or Caribou barrista to our meetings during the week. I need God to do a work in my heart about really disciple making.

Living in one place, with a part-time job though; I am required to make gospel and discipleship opportunities happen. It’s the only way they are going to happen. So for me personally, I think the Lord has given me a loose “formula” to make this happen in Salt Lake City and even on the road when I have opportunities to invite people to meetings and give the gospel.

I sit in this Starbucks about 4 times a week to get internet over the Christmas break. I see the same people working most of those days. I see some people come in and the barristas greet them by name. These are regulars to this Starbucks. They come in a lot and have been coming in for quite a long time. They have developed some sort of relationship here. Eventually names are exchanged, stories about life are exchanged. Even though it may be a shallow relationship, there is a relationship that is created because of small conversations and repeated business. Like right now, a barrista is asking how this guy’s day has been. He must come in here a lot, and that barrista must know what he does for a living. Maybe the conversations start with the customer talking to the barrista, maybe it starts with the barrista. Whatever the case, it happens everywhere.

If you live in a community, you will see the same people every now and again, especially if you frequent the same shops, and go to the same event locations, things like that. For me, I think this is where evangelism begins in a place where you are new and know No One in a city except for the people at church. Personally, wherever I choose to live, I need to pick one or two shops to get my groceries from / one or two coffee shops to chill and read or study in / be apart of some sports program in the city and get to know my team mates / take classes at the University and get to know my class mates and join study groups. So that everywhere I go I create opportunity to evangelize. i.e. I get to know my grocery store clerk because I choose to go to her to check out my groceries. If I go there once a week or once every two weeks, I have an open door to have conversations with that lady. The same goes for all the things I choose to get involved in.

The reason this is hard is because this can take months/years. This takes dedication. This will only work if God does the work through you.

This loose “formula” is loose, not set in stone, and certainly there are other opportunities outside of becoming a regular and building a solid relationship. But for the era we live in, relationship is a solid in-road to evangelism.

A thought that began this loose formula – “Coffee-shop Apologetics” – Pastor Dave Marriot

Salt Lake City

Never-mind the fact that I haven’t posted since August.

To catch you up on life since then, its really been all about Salt Lake City and Plant4theGospel.

Plant4theGospel is a church planting initiative led by 4 meek and humble men with a burden for the lost in metropolitan areas. Salt Lake City is the least evangelized city in the United States. See how these two things go hand in hand then?

How is Plant4theGospel connected to me? Its my desire to live my life for the purpose to worship, evangelize, and disciple. My purpose in what I talk about, how I conduct myself, and the videos I create. Our team is closely connected to this initiative. In fact we stem from the same organization called 4theGospel. It seems only natural to shift over to a metropolitan area to live and do gospel work after I travel, and that is exactly what I intend to do. It also seems only natural to float with people who live and breath for a similar purpose and believe in a life touching life type of evangelism and discipleship.

This video speaks of the same burden that Plant4theGospel has. http://vimeo.com/28773432

Utah is the new Africa of missions locations.