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My Thoughts
On this edition of "My Thoughts", I will center on my experience for the past week at Bryan College and relate some of the amazing things God is doing here and how He has bailed me out of a few jams.
I left Sebring about 5:15 a.m. last Friday enroute to Tennessee via U.S. 27, the Florida Turnpike and I-75. I stopped twice and amazingly they were two places that the Bible Fellowship youth stopped at while on the way to Cleveland, TN for the Student Life camp. One was a BP station about 20 miles from Valdosta and another was a Chevron in Marietta, GA and I had to really make an effort to get to it. I could hardly believe that they were the same stops.
My apartment that the Lord provided me was not quite ready so I had to kill about three hours or so before getting all the stuff out of my car. And believe me, it was quite a bit of stuff. I could hardly see out of the the back windshield and I can now declare myself an expert in side mirror usage. Once I moved in, I knew I had to get food and furniture. I happened to come at the same time as the world's longest garage sale which runs through four states along US. 127. I drove the 18 miles to Pikesville (beautiful country!) and managed to find a great La-Z-Boy chair practically new, two sets of pillows, two end tables and two lamps for $107. I also got some other nick-nacks as well.
Orientation was Saturday and I was the first one in line to get all of the necessary orientation material. At my first stop I was requested to give my medical information form. Huh? I didn't know I had to fill that out. Well, yes you do. Great. Apparently I had misread a little note on the immunization form, thinking it said that since I wasn't going out for any athletic team, I didn't need a physical which, in my mind, translated that I didn't need a record of my last tetnus shot, a TB test, and a MMR (measels, mumps, reubella) shot. That was plain dumb.
I can honestly say that I did not intend to do this. It's not like I threw the paper across the room in arrogance saying, "Bah, I don't need that crap done." I just flat out misread the paper because I would've gladly gotten all my shots before coming up. I called mom and dad requesting they find any records they could find on my MMR and tetnus. Since I couldn't contact the phone company from Florida, I wasn't able to establish service in my apartment till Monday evening, so that left me without a contact number for the first three days in Dayton. The health department couldn't fit me in till Sept. 13 and I had class on Thursday. The local hospital couldn't help me either and they probably would've charged a kidney to get the shots anyway.
In my car in the hospital parking lot, I just prayed, telling the LORD that I screwed up and that I was trusting Him in this matter. I can't remember who recommended it, but I went to Physician's Care Unit near the campus. Thankfully, they would be able to give me a TB test and a tetnus shot. That cost me $58. They gave me a phone number to contact another health department about 25 minutes south. I called the number from a pay phone and found out I could get the MMR shot as long as I showed up before 3:00. That wouldn't be a problem. After establishing my long distance service on that same pay phone, I took off south and got the shot for $20. The lady who was asking me the questions and who would give me the shot saw that I had gotten a tetnus that day and was amazed that I was able to get one. Apparently there has been a shortage of the vaccine and not everyone could get one. The Lord came through again. What's neat is that as a result of this, I was able to help someone else out who needed on MMR shot before classes started. I overheard the librarian speaking on the phone, trying to find where her daughter could get shot. I told her what I did and she called the number, which I recalled off the top of my head, and shot the same information I did: get there before 3:00 and it'll be done.
This is just a little bit about what has happened. I have started classes and I have a rather large reading load that I'm going to start tackling right away. Chapel services have been excellent with pastor Tim Shorey speaking on worshiping God and sound Christian thinking. There's more information about that on Bryan's website which I have a link to in the column on the main page. I hope to post more updates in the future as well as thoughts on various issues I feel I should write about. May be I'll post a paper of mine, or excerpts because I don't want anyone copying my work. I hope you enjoyed reading this "My Thoughts" and see how God does take care of His children.