Adore 09 and Swine Flu scares... all in all, an interesting week!

This week has been full of challenges, both spiritual, mental and physical. Last Wednesday the first case of Swine Flu was confirmed on our shores. At this writing, a whole ONE WEEK later, we have 32 cases in the state of Victoria alone. For me, nursing in a medical centre in one of the hardest hit areas, this has come a bit close for comfort.

Here in Australia, we are only at the beginning of our winter 'flu season', so it concerns me to think how quickly it is spreading already. It's been a challenge to get information to the doctors, reception staff and patients quickly enough to ensure everyone is well informed, knows how to prevent transmission, and how to advise concerned patients and suspected cases! I'm not naturally a germophobe, so it's also been a reminder to me to stay vigilant with hand washing and cleaning.
On the home front, and in between all this, I attended our annual women's conference, ADORE, which was held at my church over the weekend. Over the past three years, our conference themes have embraced larger and more purposeful living. This year, our theme was "She Extends Her Hands", an encouragement to "Live Bigger", and care for the needs of others in our world. The speakers were Pastor Bobbie Houston from Hillsong , anointed evangelist Janine Kubala, and our leading lady Georgie Baxter. We also had Compassion bring an interactive walk-through display which showed us all some of the horrible conditions some of the children of our world have to live in, and watched the testimony of Rafonzel, who was sponsored by Compassion throughout her childhood and through a university degree.
What a beautiful testimony it is! Through all of this, God has been prompting me to unearth the heart for missions that is in me. I had allowed it to be buried by other things because it seemed too hard to do something about the massive problems in the world- things like poverty, mass disease, lack of access to health care, education and basic sanitation. But Compassion's message is a simple one: "Change is about Me", meaning that if I do something to change one person's world, I will be changing the world for that one person. The video really brought that message home. I can make a difference in the world!
To be continued...