A newsy post

Tom and my experiences in Michigan have been vastly different. He's dealt with disease and death every day, and I've dealt with suburbia and free time. My main plight has been trying to keep the cleaning ladies in our hotels from changing the bed and towels every day, and running the dishwasher when there are just two cups in it.

We went to a Tenebrae service at a Catholic church in Flint on Good Friday. We sang a song, "Sing, My Tongue, the Song of Triumph," which I had not heard before. The fine print reveals it was written sometime in the sixth century. This phrase caught my attention:

From that holy body broken Blood and water forth proceed:
Earth and stars and sky and ocean By that flood from stain are freed.

Ah, the terra, in the original Latin, too, is freed.

Stained glass from the church we attended on Easter
We've kept quite a clip since our courtship began a year ago, him in particular. The upshot is Tom's exhausted. He's taken every working opportunity he could get since a six-month drought last year (now viewed providentially as the six months we needed to fall in love). His diligence was particularly with the intent of leaving the country sometime in the spring to work abroad, either me with MSF or him as it turns out we are doing, with Physicians for Peace.

Indeed, in five days we go to Malawi, Africa for three months where he will teach basic surgeries to medical students, as a volunteer. I myself have high hopes of less free time because somebody needs help with something I know how to do - and we will be in one place for three months in a row!