HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! and on a slightly less important note: Life Lately… esp. medical school

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!!!! You are an amazing mom and you mean so much to me. Thank you for the incredible amount of work you have done for me while over here, helping me with my medical school application, buying a plane ticket home and just generally doing the dynamics of life abroad. You have always been a rock that I get to depend on and a dear friend. I have loved seeing our relationship blossom as I have grown older and you have taken me on as one of your best friends. Our family has been defined by the love and care you and dad have showed us kids and I am so thankful for the opportunity to get to be a Mindrebo. Thank you for the amazing legacy you have followed in of your mother’s as a strong woman of God. It is an example that I get to look to daily and base my life off of. Getting to share you with my friends has been such a joy and I love the wise words you continually offer to us in our unique situations. You are just amazing and I can’t wait to see you again!

Well I just got back from an amazing trip to Lake Bunyoni in southwestern Uganda near the Rwanda border. My visitor for HNGR came to check up on me and we decided to take a little time for retreat and reflection at the end of her stay. Kara Robinson came in lieu of her father Paul Robinson and though I won’t speak for her ability to replace him in any way, I really did enjoy having her here. She was a great person to talk to about my independent study (on family planning in rural villages), the different dynamics of my internship that I am struggling with and share with her the joys of being here in Uganda. It is funny when you have visitors how you realize that you have become less of a guest and take on more of the host position. This is really a joy to get to host people and something I have enjoyed so much at Wheaton (miss you all), so getting to do it here is just so fun.

So yeah, we went to Lake Buyoni and stayed on this beautiful island. It was cold (at 6000 feet) which was such a nice change from the sticky heat of Kampala. We stayed on an island and were fed like queens. One of the coolest things about going there was the fellowship we got to enjoy with a Peacecorps volunteer there, Sarah. She has been staying on this small island for 1 year and has another year left. It was crazy to run into her and just share so much in common in our faith. It was really encouraging to us to get to talk with her about all that God has been doing in her life and I really loved getting to encourage her in her faith. She doesn’t get too much fellowship on the island and though she goes to the village church there, the cross cultural dynamics are very different and their faith journeys look different, so just getting to fellowship with her was an amazing gift to all of us. I may get to do some traveling with her down the road which would be really fun.

While we were at Lake Bunyoni I was expecting a call from my mom at any moment about my acceptance to IU medical school. It has been a really amazing process of applying and seeing the Lord be faithful through it all and I was just excited to see how things would turn out with my application. I was nervous in some ways but feeling confident that I would probably get in as my interview went really well. I was sitting on this beautiful porch looking out over the lake and a beautiful sunset when the call finally came on October 1. Mom was acting all somber on the phone not telling me the news straight away but asking how I was doing and what I was doing. Finally, she let the news break that she had checked the mailbox today and there had been a letter from IU, I had been accepted. The one problem she mentioned was that there was a mandatory ceremony on August 13 and 14. I couldn’t figure out the problem of this and questioned her further, “well will you be here” then she finally relented, “oh yeah that is August next year.” It was a funny little part of the conversation. She also told me that Ada June, my little niece had recently been injured as many 2 year olds do, but hers was special. She got a black eye from pulling a chair down, but the really funny part was Luke, her dad had been teaching her a few days before how to say “I’m pretty but I’m tough,” so now she chants the mantra with a big shiner on her eye. I love getting to hear little updates like this from home, they are just so real life experiences and I love getting to share in them.

So about medical school again. I have definitely felt led and called there, but in many ways I am so scared of medical school. It is something I have thought about doing nearly my whole life, but as I got the news I was like “aaaaahhhhhh the next 4 years of my life and then the whole ‘rest of my life.’” It is weird that even what people call me will change for the rest of my life. It was really good to have Breanne Wroughton’s reaction to my freak out be “well duh.” I guess it is a pretty legitimate response and by seeing it as a fine response to such news I have been able to recognize my fears and anxieties and choose to take one day at a time. I am excited for next year, I am excited to get to study about our amazing bodies, I am excited to get to settle into a new life in Indianapolis, but as far as being excited about “the rest of my life” I just feel like that is too big to handle. I am so thankful to all the people who have helped this happen, especially my mom. There were some great family members with great comments on my personal statement, Liesel, Luke, mom, dad and Uncle Daryl especially, thank you so much you helped me make my personal statement much more vivid and compelling! God has been so good in the whole process, I think I have shared some of that on this blog, but just getting to see his faithfulness in that I started the application a week, maybe a week and a half before it was due. I just can’t believe that it all worked out in acceptance. God clearly has this for me and in the midst of my anxiety about “the rest of my life” I can hold onto this history of faithfulness and I though I don’t know what the rest of my life looks like the one thing I know is he will remain faithful for the rest of my life. Thank you also for all of your prayers and partnering in this with me!

My friend Breanne Wroughton is visiting with me right now so I need to wrap this email up and go play hostess. It has been great to have her around and do the “girl talk” that I haven’t gotten to do in Uganda with all brothers here it is so interesting how different dynamics are. I just wanted to share a bit of life recently and especially about IU with all of you. I can’t believe that time is going so fast, in some ways I wish it weren’t as I am enjoying my time here so so much, but I suppose I get to see you all sooner so that is nice! Please pray as I finish out this internship that my mind will remain open and not judgmental and that I will live out my daily faith. Sometimes those mountaintop experiences can be so enticing and you can wish for a repeat of such experiences, but there is such sweetness in the everyday. I hope to continually relish this sweetness and grow closer with my Savior each day and encounter life in prayer and reflection. Peace and Grace be upon you each this day!