Greetings from Tonj.  My name is John Lazar, and over the next few weeks, you will be meeting the members of the latest team here, among them students, midwives, and my identical twin brother Joe.  We have all taken different paths to get here, and now that we have arrived, we are using our different gifts to the best of our ability to lend hands around the clinic.  And there is no shortage of work to be done, that’s for sure!

Today is Saturday, our first day of rest since arriving on Tuesday.  Each day has brought with it insights, lessons, and terrific surprises.  Today, I was impressed most with the sheer variety of places we can help around the clinic.  As I said, it was a day of rest, and  I mean this in a relative sense.  We were at work in the morning, and the afternoon held some more fun activities.

I came here after completing my first year in medical school, and have been working pretty exclusively in the clinic during the week.  But today I was able to get my fill in all the other work that goes on here on a daily basis.  Many of us began by helping with the construction of the new clinic.  Only a frame stands right now, but already I can imagine this new building being so much larger than the clinic we have been using.  It will be exciting to see this project come along little by little each day.  After a few hours on the site, there were repeated patients in the clinic, which is closed on weekends to everything but emergencies.  So the clinic, together with the construction site, was hot with activity on this Saturday morning.  Following lunch, we got some down time, but later in the afternoon we went into Tonj to have some fun and do some advertising for the next day’s event: a screening of the World Cup in the local Church.  We obtained a projector and satellite dish, and have been planning an event to promote a feeling of community and entertainment.  How did we advertise, you might ask.  By heading to the soccer field and playing soccer with the local children, and passed on the news about the World Cup.  Even getting on with duties is fun here.

I’ve come to understand that there is aaaaalways things to be done here, and there’s a job for all of us to do.  And today was a fun opportunity to get a glimpse of some of the other goings-on outside of the clinic itself.  It is a really dynamic and growing place I’m blessed to call home for the next month.  Thanks for reading, and see you next Saturday.