Peace out, Texas!

In just 4 short days I will be boarding a plane to Nicaragua.

The story of how I ended up on this trip is worth mentioning, so I'll start with that.

One night a few months ago I was reading Revolution in World Missions (an amazing book) on the Spicer couch and I had this strange desire to go on a mission trip this Christmas.

Ok now I know all of you LH people just went "did you actually READ the book?"

I know. The whole book is about supporting native missionaries.

Like I said, it was strange.

Anyway, I just put the book down and asked the Lord to open a door if He really wanted me to go.

The next day I emailed asking for info about a trip I had been getting emails about through the school. I got an email back from a girl saying she thought that the trip was full, but I could email another lady if I wanted to double check. I didn't.

So that was that.

A few weeks later I got an email from a girl that was supposed to go on the trip, asking if I was interested in going. She and her husband had some family issues come up, and she really felt like she wasn't supposed to go on the trip and had heard that I was looking for a spot.

I emailed her back and got some details, and then she tells me this "they need a decision by Friday." This was Wednesday night.

I prayed about it and then I started calling people who could help me think through this.

Rachel Rogers... how I love this girl. She always has such wise advice. She reminded me that I had prayed for a door to open, and that this might be one of the only times in my life where I will have the ability to just pick up and leave for a week.

I emailed back and accepted the spot.

Looking back, I think it's so funny that I asked God to do something, and then when He did, I questioned Him. I kept praying for Him to tell me yes or no, when He had clearly already answered me by opening the door.

I need more faith.

Seriously.

Anyway, I am going to Managua for a week with doctors, nurses, and students to run a clinic with a local church.

There are around 15 of us total, and we'll be staying in a mission house that the church owns.

I'm really excited about being able to team up with the local church, helping them establish relationships with people in their community. We can provide medical care for these people, but the truth is they need Jesus way more than they need to be free of worms.

Members of the church and people from the community will be able to come to the clinic in the church for free healthcare, and the church will have volunteers there to share the gospel and pray for them.

We will also be spending a day in La Chureca, a landfill in Managua that is home to around 1500 people.

Please pray for us while we're on our trip! We leave this Saturday (the 15th) and get back on the 21st. Pray that God will move in big ways on the trip, and that we will be able to help the local church in Managua reach out to the community.

Love you guys!

I'm So Proud

Who knew this skinny kid from Crosby, Texas would turn out to be such a big deal?

Ok so maybe we all kind of thought he would. Seriously JJ was that kid in highschool that made the rest of us quit playing musical instruments. We'd all be jamming out in Jacob Blizzard's garage (Ben on guitar, Jacob on bass, me on the drums because no one else wanted to play them - and no, I can't play the drums) and then JJ would come over and gracefully blow us all out of the water without even trying. Always gracefully.

I used to make JJ come over and play piano and sing to me for hours. It's no wonder I was slightly in love with him at the tender age of 15.

But for real you guys need to go listen to his new cd and buy it! It's so good.

Go!

http://www.jjworthen.com

P.S. Yes Allison, same guy.

Oh Whitney...

My sister just told me about something that happened the other day, and I felt the need to share.

We have a dark-colored rug in the living room at home, and apparently the dog decided to leave a "present" on it.

Being nicely camouflaged on the dark rug, my sister didn't see it and stepped in it.

She of course started freaking out, and Whitney (my 2 year-old niece) came running to see what it was. My sister told her "yucky poop" and hobbled off to wash her foot and get something to clean up the mess with.

Mandy came back to find Whitney standing in the living room, holding the poop.

As Mandy looked at her horrified, Whitney said "I like poop" and started petting it.

Mandy screamed.

Whitney threw the poop.

Much hand-washing followed.

Ridiculously funny.

The Heart of the Matter

I'm still working on the topic of dating in my head. It's a hard topic for me, because I'm the kind of person who wants straight answers for everything. I want to know exactly what I'm supposed to do and when I'm supposed to do it. I want a bulleted outline complete with dates, times, and locations.

Last I checked, God hadn't emailed me an excel spreadsheet. So here I am, wrestling, or "hashing" as Heather would say, with this topic.

Mostly I just wrestle with myself in my head, but every now and then Heather comes in and adds her 2 cents (in my head). The voice of Heather is always welcome in my head, except when I am driving on I-45 between the 610 and the beltway. There are like 6 giant blow up items on stores and car dealerships on that stretch of road, and that's when the imaginary voice of Heather goes on a rant about how stupid blow up items are instead of sharing wisdom. Funny, but not helpful.

Anyway, I haven't come to any conclusions about there being just "the one" or not, but I have come to some conclusions on why it is so difficult for us and why we end up hurting ourselves and each other so often.

I think the heart of our issues with dating is just that, the heart.

Perhaps our problems with dating are merely symptoms of larger issues in our hearts.

Maybe our issues with dating stem from the fact that we are incredibly self-centered people, who find ourselves in relationships for all the wrong reasons.

What if our focus in our relationships was truly bringing the Lord glory and building up the other person? Would we even have dating issues if that was our goal, instead of making ourselves happy?

What if we truly served the person we were dating instead of demanding what we want?

I think the real problem with dating is that we can't get over ourselves. It has become about what we think we want, need, and deserve. Our culture drills this into us. It tells us all about how we deserve to be treated, what we should get, and how the other person should make us feel.

I hear all the time that you can tell where your focus is by where your time, your money, and your thoughts are. Man, even if I can manage to give away a little money every month and spend some time serving others, that last one gets me every time. I think about myself all day long.

So it's only natural that when I'm in a relationship with someone that I focus on how they're not meeting my expectations, or how they're not giving me enough attention, or how they're not making me feel special enough. Me. Me. Me.

Issues.

And that's just what they are - issues. At the end of the day I find myself worrying and struggling with all of my issues because I've spent my entire day thinking about myself.

When I do take my eyes off of myself and seek the Lord and when I spend my time serving and loving others, I suddenly find myself with a lot less issues. I find the Lord healing me and changing me, without me doing anything.

Love God, love others. So simple. If we could just get that down, I think we would have a lot less issues with dating, and a lot less issues in general for that matter.

So maybe the problem isn't "dating" itself, but us. I still don't have the answers to how dating should look, and probably it's a little different for everyone, but if our focus is on the Lord and loving others, I can't imagine us having nearly as many problems with it as we do now.

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
-Matthew 6: 33

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
-2 Corinthians 4:18

Oh man...

I'm pretty sure I'm about to get myself unlinked from the Roger blog for not posting in a timely manner....

Fear not, I am alive and doing well. I finished pedi and general surgery in the prison, and now I'm in Houston doing plastic surgery at the VA, which I love. I am finally catching up to my domestic friends in the sewing department (hey flesh counts, right?).

Ok so the real reason for this post.

This lady.

I mean seriously, how is it possible to be convicted all the stinkin' time through a BLOG? Heather, you're killin' me!

But seriously, I love it. I love being challenged with the truth and letting the Lord teach me through this wonderful, crazy woman.

Lately Heather has been talking about dating on her blog again. Now honestly, I kind of hate talking about this topic, but I feel like it is something we so desperately need to talk about. The way we approach dating, even as Christians, is terrible. We focus on ourselves, our wants, and our needs, take our eyes off of Christ, and end up with wounded hearts, broken friendships, bitterness, and anger.

This isn't the way it's supposed to be.

I honestly think so much of this is because we are selfish, stubborn people. We want to find the perfect person for us. The one who will fulfill our every want and need, and make our lives wonderful. Do you see the problem here? What is wrong with us?

When are we going to figure out that life is not about us? I find that I am the most discontent with being single when I am focused on myself. When all I think about is how unfair it is that all of my friends are married except me, and how I deserve to be loved and adored, and how the Lord should give me a husband. Selfish lies.

So what do we do? How do we honor the Lord through the dating? What does that even look like?

I have no idea.

All I know is that we need to do things differently.

If you haven't done the Hendrick dating worksheet, you need to. Be warned now, it will make re-evaluate everything you thought you knew about dating. It will challenge you and frustrate you, but it is so good. The comments on each page are filled with wisdom from amazing men and women, both married and single.

So go do the worksheet!

Let's ask the Lord to change our stubborn hearts and show us His will for us.

Ready go!

I Have a Confession to Make...

Ok, I think it's about time I came out of the closet about my education prior to Texas A&M.

I, Lauren Michelle Davis, was in fact, a homeschooler. Shocking, I know.

I hate telling people that. Not because I am ashamed of my education, but because of what people assume when I say that (long ugly dresses, no socialization skills, frizzy 80's hair gone bad...) You know what I'm talking about.

BUT, with so many families starting to homeschool/thinking about homeschooling, I thought it might be helpful to share my thoughts as someone who has gone through 10 years of it and come out on the other side.

I will be the first to say that homeschooling is not for every child, but for me, homeschooling was exactly what I needed. I went to a private school and by the second grade, I was bored silly. I still remember being so frustrated that I had to write my spelling words 5 times when I knew them after 1. Eventually, I just started finding new ways to entertain myself. Since taking a math test was boring, I would instead try to race the other kids to finish first. Something needed to change.

By the grace of God, my mom decided to try homeschooling. I was a super independent child, so we used materials that were mostly self-taught. My mom assigned the lessons for the day, and I found them in the books and did them. People are always surprised to find out that my mom did not actually stand at the front of our dining room and teach me everyday. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot that she had to teach me, but so much of what we did was book-oriented (because that's what worked best for us).

In middle school I started taking classes with other homeschoolers twice a week (I know, right?... a school for homeschoolers... so funny), and when I was 15 I started taking classes at the community college. In case you didn't know, homeschoolers can take classes at community colleges for FREE. All that you have to pay for is books and lab fees. Amazing.

When I tell people I was homeschooled, they usually laugh. Then they realize I'm not kidding and have all sorts of questions. Here are some of the questions I get a lot:

Q: So do you feel like you missed out on lots of things by being homeschooled?
A: Not at all. I still played sports, I still hung out with my friends (both homeschooled and not) and I even went to football games and dances.

Q: What types of books did you use?
A: We used a lot different curriculums through the years, but mostly we used A Beka Books for language arts, Bob Jones for science, and Saxon for math. Saxon math books are incredible. I LOVED doing math from these books - they are so easy to understand and I could do them mostly by myself. I still love algebra because of these books.

Q: Was it hard to go from homeschooling to a huge school like Texas A&M?
A: I thought it would be, but it was actually very easy. I loved meeting new people and because I had already taken lots of classes at the community college, I knew what to expect from my professors.

Q: Do you have any social problems now?
A: Ok seriously, what kind of a question is this?? I kid you not, I get asked this ALL THE TIME. I don't know if that's a hint or what, but I seriously hope I'm not socially awkward.

Q: What are your pros/cons?
A: Pros
-I was able to graduate early
-I went into A&M with 53 free college hours already done
-I learned how to teach myself from a textbook (this proved to be especially useful in college)
-I had a lot more free time to be involved with my church, sports, and other acitivities
-I have almost zero test anxiety
-Homeschool Day at Six Flags = no lines (although lots of bad hair and ugly dresses)

Cons
-Most colleges don't offer scholarships to homeschoolers
-I won't ever have a class reunion to go to
-I struggled to pay attention in my classes in college
-I am seriously lacking in the literature department. Because we used mostly Christian text books, I didn't read a lot of the classic novels (Grapes of Wrath, Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Brave New World), and that is probably the only area where I feel like I don't know as much as everyone else.

I do want to mention that there is no right or wrong way to homeschool. The beauty of homeschooling is that you can do what works best for your child. One year we homeschooled with another family (my mom taught history, the other mom taught science), we thought about video school (ok for real please don't make your kids watch other kids go to school), I did a Bible program on the computer one year... there are so many options! Ultimately, we did what worked best for us as a family.

All of that to say that It is possible to homeschool your kids and them turn out at least semi-normal and be able to function in a social environment. Please feel free to ask me questions if you have them!

10 Things I Have Learned From Working in the ER...

1) If you don't have time to go to the doctor during the day, it's ok... just go to the ER!

2) If you weren't sick coming in, you're probably sick going out.

3) If you don't like what the doctor has to say, you should just walk out and not tell anyone.

4) If the doctor says "this might hurt a little," you should brace yourself for severe pain.

5) If you "accidentally" hit a girl in the head with a pool ball and she happens to have a cue stick in her hand, you should run (unless you want 10 stitches in your head).

6) If a doctor tries to apply orthoglass directly to your skin, you should find another doctor.

7) If your sister has scabies and you sleep with her blanket, you probably have scabies too.

8) Only listen to people in long white coats.

9) If your baby AND you are both patients in the pediatric ER, you should probably not be having kids.

10) Alcohol and socket wrenches are a bad combination. (5 staples)

Virtual Tour!

After living here for over a year, I figured it was about time that I finally put up pictures! So for all of you who were just dying to see where LD lives today, this post is for you. Hopefully you will see how great my house is and decide to come visit!

As you probably guessed, the top picture is the outside of my house. According to the owners of this house, it was built in the late 1800's and survived the 1900 storm. It has since been converted into two apartments, up and down, and I live upstairs.

This is the neighbor dog, Lulu.

The first time I looked at this house, I fell in love with Lulu. She meets me at the gate every morning on my way to school and sticks her nose between the gate and the fence so I can pet her.

I don't have a picture of the neighbor cat, Simba, but he's worth mentioning because when I moved in he decided to take up residence on my front porch. Occasionally I even find him in my house (he's a sneaky one).

Ok, moving on.

These are the terribly narrow stairs that we had to move all of my furniture up. And by we I mean Corey and Luke. Praise God for strong boys.


This is my living room/dining room...




I love my kitchen...



The kitchen has a little breakfast nook and Kristin graciously donated this table and chairs to me.

Meliss and I recovered the chairs with this super cute fabric!


This is the impossibly small space that the washer and dryer fit in... if you didn't catch the story, this is the second washer/dryer set to be moved into this house. The first set didn't fit, and I had to buy another.


Melissa's cute pink room...



Our bathroom...


My room... as you can see, I've only managed to get one of my curtains up thus far. One of these days I'm going to get the rest up.



One of my favorite things about this house is the storage... we each have two closets! Fabulous.


Well, that's about it. Thanks for visiting!

Sick Out

I'm not starting this post with a picture because it would ruin my dramatic effect. There will be a picture later... I promise.

Ok so I'm about to go to bed tonight and I go to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

As I'm standing in the kitchen, with only the light from the refrigerator, pouring my water, I hear a noise. Not an ice dropping into the frezer noise, not a refrigerator gurgle noise, not an old house creaking noise, but a very much alive noise.

I freeze.

The noise stops.

I shut the fridge.

Noise again.. definitely alive, definitely scratching.

So I do what any normal female would do - I run for help.

This is how my conversation went with my roommate (who was asleep):
Me: Meliss, something is moving in the kitchen
Melissa: What?
Me: Something is MOVING in the kitchen
Melissa: Yeah, I got that much, WHAT is moving?
Me: I have no idea! A mouse? A roach? A very small person? GET UP!

Now we're in the kitchen, waiting for the noise.

Melissa stomps on the floor - scratching noise begins.

I grab the flashlight. Do I have overhead lighting? Yes. Do I think to use it? No.

Flashlights are much more mysterious.

We determine that the noise is definitely coming from the bottom cupboard where we keep the food. We think it's a mouse.

Melissa: I'm ok with it living in there until tomorrow.
Me: I'm not! We just bought that food!

Melissa climbs on the sink.

I grab the swiffer.

She opens the door.

Nothing.

I poke around with the swiffer.

Nothing.

Finally, it moves again. It's defintiely on Melissa's shelf.

I hand her the mop.

I don't know why I thought that cleaning supplies would help us.

Swiffer? Check. Mop? Check. Big scary moving thing in cupboard? Check.


Then I move some stuff around and I see this abomination:




That's right, the biggest, nastiest roach I have EVER seen. I've lived in this house for over a year and this is the first roach I have ever seen in it. Gross.

Then I had to kill it. I hit that thing 3 times with a shoe and it still drug itself around the shelf with one leg.

I want to vomit just thinking about it. Gross.

Melissa says "great. I WOULD get the roach shelf."

Gross.

HOPE Group Love

This kid. I was going through a photo album of mine entitled "HOPE group" and I started laughing so hard that I decided to share. Most of the pictures in the album were taken by Hayden, thus most of the pictures are self-portraits.

There is also an entire series of photos of people from the neck down. I asked Hayden about these the day he took them and he said "I cut their heads off!" So funny.


I miss this floor.


Luke and D.O. gettin' schooled.


Fabulous faces.

If you thought those face-making skills were strictly from Heather, you were wrong.


These next ones are just cute...





Notice D.O.'s right pant leg...


One more self portrait.


Oh, HOPE group. I miss you guys. Terribly.

Option Adoption

Most of you know I hope to have a large, multi-cultural family one day through the joy of adoption. There is something so beautiful and amazing about taking a child in as your own, just as God has chosen to make us sons and daughters.

Well this week, "option adoption" has become more and more appealing to me, mostly because option "push a baby out your hoo-ha" has become more frightening and disturbing.

I don't care what any of you have to say about child birth being so "natural" and wonderful, there is nothing natural or wonderful about a 10lb 3oz baby coming out of you know where. That's how big the baby I delivered today was and no, she did not have an epidural. I wondered why it was taking so long (this was her third) until I saw the head of that baby. When we weighed the baby I looked over at mom, held up both hands and said "diez!" She looked at me and said "DIEZ?!" and then promptly dropped her head back down into the bed and gave me a "no wonder I thought I was going to die" look.

And let's not forget about the alternative, option "rip your baby straight out through your abdomen." Even if childbirth is natural, having your uterus ON TOP of your abdomen, is not. Your internal organs should never be on the outside of your body. Ever.

One more thing and then I will end my freak out session on childbirth.

No matter how beautiful or cute a baby is going to be in a few days, it will always come out looking like an alien. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. Unless it belongs to you and you are blinded by your overwhelming and unconditional love, you know it looks like an alien. A slimy, cone-headed, still attached to grossness alien.

I think I'll take mine clean with a nice round head, and hopefully with none of that weird left-over cord nastiness still attached to their belly buttons.


PS Brandon Rogers says I don't update my blog enough to make it onto his blog list. I say that is trash. I just wanted everyone to be aware.

Back From The Dead!

After hearing "you need to update your blog!" about 6 times over the past couple of days (crazy LH blog-fanatics), I figured it must be time... this one's for you, LH bloggers.

So here are some of the things that have happened since my last post:

I went to Kentucky and saw these great people:


I stayed at with Bethan and Brandon and spent some time with my cousin Daniel, his wife Joy, and their baby Reid. It was a time of sweet fellowship and lots of laughs. I even got to go to the famous Monday Night Dinner at Beth and Lee Wilsons house and let me just say Lee was not lying about how good Beth's cooking is. It was incredible. We also ate at this fun restaurant with lots of stuff to pose with, which we of course took full advantage of.

Oh how I love these two.


I accomplished my goal of stealing baby Reid for a good portion of the week.


Then I went to Nashville! I went to see my dear friend Allison from highschool.


Where Allison at in this picture? The Parthenon. No joke. A life-size replica of the Parthenon is right in the middle of Nashville. See for yourself.



Back here in Texas, Lauren Shary became Mrs. Colin Miles!



Here are some of us girls that were in the wedding. Notice what cruelty she made us wear on our heads. Only for you, Lauren... only for you.



It was such a fun wedding and we had some amazing girl time beforehand. I miss you girls!

Since then I finished out my first year of school and had a great week off to rest and fellowship. I spent a few days in Houston with my family and then headed off to College Station to see my other family before things get crazy here.

I stayed with this sweet girl



We went to It's A Grind, where I got to see the Chad, the Smith family, and meet the Bacaks for the first time! Now I can legitimately blog-stalk them and not just pretend like I know them. Rusty and I talked about him perhaps needing a PA in a year in a half so maybe I'll get to come back to my beloved College Station afterall. We'll see :)

Ashley and I went to La Bodega (mmm cilantro lime sauce), church, and Blue Baker all in one day. It was fabulous.

I also got to check out the new Hendrick house which is, let me just say, incredible. It has these great high ceilings, storage everywhere, and great paint colors. It already looks like they've lived there forever. Just perfect.

Anson always gives me a hug when I come over, but on Saturday night after church he yelled my name and ran over to give me another hug. It made me miss those crazy kids so much! Hayden doesn't even ask me "you got your camera?" anymore. I seriously need to come back before they all forget who I am and how great my peanut butter cookies are.

My whole time in College Station was so refreshing. In so many ways, it is still home to me, and I struggle so much with finding community here. My church is an hour away and my schedule will be nuts starting tomorrow. Please pray that I can find fellowship here in Galveston.

Well, I think that pretty much brings you up to speed.

Tomorrow is my first day of rotations, and I'm starting on OB/GYN here in Galveston. I have a feeling after a few days of waking up crazy early and frantically trying to remember what to do this is what I'm going to be feeling like:


The gingerbread snowman, not me.

Anyway, I'm sure lots of insane stories will be taking place over the next few months so I will do my best to post them for your reading enjoyment.

Other posts coming soon:

-Virtual tour of the LD house

-The story of Marco Polo - the neighbor, not the explorer. I'm trying to get a picture of him for you that doesn't involve me
getting harrassed by him... this could be interesting.

Love you guys!

I Have Baby Envy

I admit it. I want one. But for now I'm just going to Kentucky to steal this one for a few days.

My White Coat Life

Don't I look professional? Hah. I still have no idea what I'm doing. I'm sorry for the lack of posts recently, but school pretty much owns me these days. I spend my days in class getting flooded with information, and I spend my nights trying to process that information into something I can understand and retain. We have 2-3 tests every week, which is pretty much terrible, but at least it forces me to study.

I recently found out where I will be spending June 2007-June 2008. I will not be coming to College Station (sad day, everyone), but I did end up with some pretty incredible rotations.

I will be spending my first 3 months doing OB/GYN and pediatrics, during which time I get to spend 2 weeks at LBJ's pediatric ER, and time in the nursery with the babies!

Then I get go to prison! Just kidding... kind of. I'll be spending a month doing general surgery on prisoners here at UTMB. It turns out UTMB is the only medical campus that's associated with a prison hospital, so we spend a lot of time with inmates. Yay for us. I've never had to walk through so many gates and doors in my life. We had an orientation about why you shouldn't leave anything in the room after you leave. It went something like this:

Prison Guard: "What does this look like to you?"
Us: "A toothbrush?"
Prison Guard, turning the toothbrush over: "WRONG! It's a weapon to kill you with!"

Yep. There was a razorblade on the other end of that toothbrush.

Apparently a couple of tongue depressors, some tape, and a razoblade broken out of your shaving razor can make a pretty deadly weapon.

My favorite line was this, "watch out for that IV tubing - they might strangle you with it!"

What are we supposed to do? Take the IV out? Please.

Anyway, I'm still excited about getting to do surgery and prisoners are people too, even if they do try to kill you with some IV tubing.

My next month will be spend at the VA hospital in the medical center, doing reconstructive plastic surgery. I'm really excited about getting to do this rotation. It's an elective that I had asked for, and I think it will be really interesting.

Then I've got ER and then psychiatry in my hometown of Kingwood. Probably sending someone to their hometown to do psychiatry is not a good idea, but I'll take it because it means free housing. Let's just see how awkward it can be when someone I know comes in.

The month of February I'll be back here, working in the HIV clinic on campus. I kind of freaked out when I got this rotation, because I certainly didn't ask for it. And then I remembered that the Lord is completely in control of everything, and it occurred to me that this could be an incredible opportunity for me. A huge part of me going to PA school was my desire for missions. On my trips one of the things I noticed was the incredible need for healthcare in third world countries. I'm not sure what that's going to look like in my life later, but I know that I want missions to be some part of my life. That being said, what's one of the most prevalent diseases in third world country? HIV. Incredible.

After that I've got my family medicine, internal medicine, and geriatrics rotations. I'll be spending May in Tyler, and that's really my only rotation that I won't be in the Galveston/Houston area. I've got some friends that live there, so I shouldn't have any problems finding housing.

These rotations are an answer to prayer on so many levels. Besides the incredible opportunity with the HIV clinic, I'll be spending almost all of my time here in Galveston or in Houston. That is such a blessing because I've been so worried about joining a church that I wasn't going to be around for. Sooo.. I'm joining Houston First Baptist! I visited the singles Bible study class last weekend and I felt so at home. It's so wonderful to feel like a part of a church again instead of just a visitor.

Well, that's the update, folks. I've got another week here of school before Spring Break and then I'm headed up to Kentucky! I'll be sure and post pictures and stories when I get back. Love you all!