The conversation went down something like this:
Me: Boy,I really am excited about what you guys do. I love that you have hospitals all over the world, healing the poorest of the poor, blah blah blah, it's really awesome, etc. etc., keep it up, etc.
Them: Great! Why don't you come join us for a week, see how we operate, help us out?
Me: Okay.
Them: Where do you want to go? What do you want to do?
Me: Wherever. Doesn't matter. I'll do the bedpans. Don't care.
Them: Okay, Afghanistan. Clean blood off the beds and floor in the O.R.
Me: No pr -- excuse me?
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I'm leaving November 8th.
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This is all Lord-willing, of course. But that's the plan. Cure International is an amazing story. They do work in the name of Jesus, and they are in some very unlikely places. They are now -- get this -- the number one provider of clubbed-foot surgery in the world. And did I mention it's very purposefully a Kingdom of God thing?
The hospital is *not* in a protected zone. So I figure the beard won't hurt. Just trying to blend in and stuff. Kind of like Jason Bourne, and how he blends into that story about the price-fixing informant-guy at ADM.
I'm kinda concerned for my safety. And then I think, "There are doctors and staff who have given up American salaries to LIVE in Kabul." Not for just a week, like me -- they live there, and they do it to heal the broken, and let little kids run and play for the first time, and they do it because of Jesus.
The Church. Making sense. It's beautiful.
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And this is the point of being in Christian RadioTM, of course: I'm going to agitate some people. We're going to ask people to give. CURE provides pre and post-natal care for moms, and cares for little babies, too, in a place with the highest infant mortality rate on the planet. CURE wants to ask American Christians to provide blankets to wrap around Muslim moms and their newborn babies, and let the moms take the heavy blankets with them as they return into the cold.
And you know what else is cool? "Cool", in this case, means "poetically right":
I get the bloody job.
I like that, too. I've watched a lot of footage of war in Afghanistan. I'm thankful for our military and their families.
And, I'm also guessing you'll agree, something just rings right about getting on the floor and cleaning up some blood -- blood from a surgery to heal. You may think this is odd, but please know: Many people reading this, right now, wish they could do it alongside me. I'm looking forward to this.
