Morning Prayers and Mourning Prayers

     I'm not a good early riser, which means I don't get a lot of prayers in during the morning hours. Today happened to be one of those days when I woke up a little ahead of my wife and the littles (the bigs are at Winter Retreat), so I got to start my Bible reading early. Normally, my Bible reading ends up coinciding with breakfast, since that is usually my only sit-down time in the a.m.

     All of this led to my looking at Facebook for a few minutes while I ate my delicious oatmeal muffin the Mrs. had whipped up last night and drank my coffee. Within just a couple of minutes on Facebook I had come across three prayer requests and a reminder of the state of our nation. Morning prayer became a priority.

     My prayer this morning was a prayer of requests; prayers that our nation might recover from the road she is on, prayers that myself and my family would stay faithful no matter what, prayers for a family suffering through the delivery of a term baby who has already passed on, prayers for those in a plane crash related to the Iron Dog race. These prayers were requests, but also prayers of mourning; for our country, for a grieving set of parents; for those injured. My morning prayers became my mourning prayers, and suddenly my prayers took me back to Afghanistan, where I prayed over every injured and dead service member I came in contact with, every one that I worked with or encountered there.

     I mourned the situation that had brought us there, and I prayed that whatever was happening in each person's life, that it would cause them to seek God, to strengthen their relationship with Him, or correct it. That the effects would spread like ripples in the water, affecting not just those touched by whatever incident, but those around them; family and friends, neighbors and co-workers.

     We are told that "All things work together for good to them that love the Lord, to those that are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28) My prayer in Afghanistan, and my prayer this morning was that everything I was reading about and praying about would work for good, to bring souls to love the Lord, to become those who are called. I want my prayers of mourning to become prayers of victory.

     Is this wrong? I certainly cannot find a Biblical example of this kind of prayer. I know that God can use painful circumstances to bring people to obedience. Look at Saul's conversion, or the jailer's. I know that God hears the prayers of those who are seeking Him, but are not yet saved. Cornelius and his household tell me this. But nowhere do I find a prayer that asks for these things to happen specifically. However this has become a prayer that I pray so often, because I don't know how else to ask God to take awful circumstances and use them for good for those who are not His elect, yet.

     I do know that as part of this prayer, I need to be asking God to use me to effect that change, if possible. I am sure that I fall short so often, but I pray that even the tiniest seed will find good soil. I had a very hard time in Afghanistan, and being reminded of it still causes me to question my effectiveness there. I pray that some good will come of what I said or did for someone.

     My prayer for you today is that you would pray these prayers also, that when we pray prayers of mourning, when we pray for good to come from evil, that we all would strive to be the one to help someone through the bad to turn to the Eternal Good.

     Blessings  - Robert

Forgetting to Focus

     Have you ever taken a picture with a 35 mm camera, but forgot to focus? What was the result? If you were lucky, you got a picture that still looked okay. If you weren't quite as lucky, you had a wasted shot. With film, that meant that you could never recapture that moment. From this illustration, we know that focus is important.

     When the United States first entered the War on Terror back in 2001, there was a singular focus - Get Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Both of those objectives have been accomplished, yet over 50 thousand U.S. personnel remain in Iraq, and we are still actively engaged militarily in Afghanistan. The U.S. government has lost focus. The result is that the troops continue to die, because there are now multiple ideas regarding the goals of our involvement across the seas. Losing focus can be deadly. Just ask the parents of our young men and women who have returned to our shores in flag-draped coffins.

     As Christians, we also should have a singular focus - to get ourselves and as many others to heaven as possible. Unfortunately, all too many of us wearing that holy name have lost focus. We are now mired down in this world, arguing over different ideas/ideals and goals. The result is much more significant than a ruined picture, or even physical death. The result is spiritual death. Literally millions are dying everyday without hearing the Gospel. This should not be! The first century church had a singular focus and was able to evangelize the entire known world. In this day and age, we have no excuse for not doing the same.

     
May God Bless you as you re-examine your focus!  - Robert

A Day in the Life at Craig Joint Theater Hospital (Warning: May be considered graphic)

This is the final article I wrote about Afganistan, also intended for publication in the newspaper. This is not for the kiddos.

    The alarm clock begins beeping, signaling the start of another day. It’s only been a few hours since he closed his eyes, but for Capt. Robert Austin of the U.S. Air Force, there is no sleeping in, no matter how tired he is. “Service Before Self” is one of the three key tenets of the Air Force, and this deployment has provided an exceptional opportunity to live that tenet. 

Austin, a Nurse Anesthetist deployed from Travis Air Force Base in Northern California is a Nurse Anesthetist with the 455^th Expeditionary Medical Group at Craig Joint Theater Hospital, Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. 

He says, “On paper, we only work 8 hour shifts. I’m usually at the hospital 12-14 hours a day, minimum. So many of our patients require so much that we often have 2 providers in the room, or we are busy enough that we end up staying over to help cover the cases.” He is referring to the nearly 300 anesthetics he has provided or helped with in the past 6 months.

“My last day off was the day I got here, December 21^st,” He smiles and jokes, “My next will be the day I go home.”

The hospital cares for a large majority of the American troops wounded in theater, as well as Afghan National Police, Afghan military, and local nationals. He explains, “Bagram is the primary hub for evacuation to Germany. No matter where in country you are injured, you will most likely come through this facility on your way out.”

Accurate numbers were not available, but Austin estimates that the facility averages 10 surgeries a day, ranging from laparoscopic appendectomies and gall bladder extractions to multi-specialty, multi-hour cases. "We have specialties here that you’ll only find at large hospitals stateside. Neurosurgical services, pediatric orthopedics, vascular surgeons, ophthalmological surgeons. We have it all. Often we’ll have one surgery with 4 or 5 services scrubbed in. It can be very hectic." 

One of the surgeries that stands out in his mind is a Polish patient early in the deployment. “I started his case one evening and took it back over and finished it the next day. He was in surgery for over 18 hours. He had Ortho, General Surgery, Neuro, and I believe, Urology, all working on him.”

Such extensive surgeries are the exception, not the rule, fortunately. Unfortunately, the signature injury of the war, amputation of both lower extremities and one hand with or without groin injury are seen almost daily, and are increasing in frequency. “These patients are the hardest,” says Austin. “Usually we are not the first to see them. By the time they get to us, they have already sustained not only their original injury, but the first of what will be multiple surgeries. They are the recipients of massive transfusions.”

‘Massive transfusion’ refers to when a patient receives more than 10 units of blood products. The average circulating volume of the human body is 5 liters. 10 units of blood products comes close to completely replacing that volume. 

“We recently had a patient who had received 70 units of packed red blood cells (pRBCs), 64 units of Fresh Frozen Plasma (FFP), 21 units of whole blood, 4 10-packs of cryoprecipitate and 5 6-packs of platelets before he got to us. He had the equivalent of 14 people’s entire blood volumes for one surgery. We took him back to surgery, gave him another 8 units of whole blood, 8 pRBCs, 13 FFP, 3 10-packs of cryoprecipitate and 5 more 6 packs of platelets, or about another 4 blood volumes, just for the revision and washout of his injuries. He’s facing probably another 20 or more surgeries over the next few months, and then years worth of recovery and physical therapy.”

Austin says he wonders about how well these patients will do. “We’ll never see these guys again. I have no idea if they will recover and adjust to life without three limbs, or if they will die of infection, or what. It’s hard.”

Some patients exhibit a spirit that reassures him. “We had one guy who had lost a leg. He had to go back to surgery for a washout of his injury. After surgery he was in a lot of pain, both physically and emotionally. He was really struggling with accepting his injury. One of the ICU nurses told me the next day he was gonna be ok. I asked her how she knew and she shared a joke with me that he had told her that night. 

‘Where does a man with only one leg go for breakfast? IHOP!’ If you can joke about it, you’re probably going to be all right.”

There are other patients that Austin will never forget either, the ones who didn’t survive. Speaking of the first patient who died while in the operating room under his care, Austin says, “I carry a lot of guilt,” he says. “They died under my care. While I can know that I did everything right, that we all did, it doesn’t change the fact that we lost him. We tried until it was apparent that he wasn’t going to make it, and then we kept trying. There were four anesthesia providers working on him and six surgeons. At one point there were over 20 people in the room, all contributing to try and keep this soldier alive. He had the best of the best giving it their best, and it wasn’t enough.”

Austin says he is glad he’s going home soon. “I have been privileged to care for our troops, but it’s someone else’s turn. The cost is of caring for these boys is high, mentally and emotionally, not just for me, but for my family as well. I’m looking forward to being reunited with them, and to my upcoming PCS.” Austin will be moving to Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage later this summer.

What are the odds?

This is actually the first article I wrote, before I found out about Davin and Dan being there. This was also intended to be published as a Newspaper article

     It is approximately 6500 miles as the crow flies from Homer to Bagram, Afghanistan. That distance was bridged in an incredible way this spring. Sometime in Mid-April of this year, a chance conversation at the local CarQuest between Mariah Thomas-Wolfe and R.J. Austin led to the discovery that both of them had sons deployed to Bagram with the 455 EMDOS, serving in the same unit.
    Mariah’s son, Senior Airmen Zach Schindler is a 2004 graduate of Homer High and works in the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility or CASF as a medical technician. R.J.’s son, Captain Robert Austin, graduated Homer High in 1994 and is a Nurse Anesthetist working in the Operating Room inside the hospital. The two met a about two weeks after their parent’s encounter, during a IDF or Indirect Fire attack, when the CASF was evacuated into the hospital.
    “It is incredible. No matter how far away we get, I always run into somebody from home. My last deployment (To Balad, Iraq in 2005-2006) I worked with a guy from Kenai. There are a couple of docs here from Alaska as well. I am impressed with how well represented Alaska is in the Armed Forces.” says Captain Austin.

    Coincidentally, only a couple of nights before Austin and Schindler met, Capt. Austin snapped a picture. He explains, “People back home make and send blankets and pillows for the wounded troops to use on their flight out to Germany. The litters that the patients travel on are lined up in the hall a few hours before the flight. That night, I happened to notice the embroidery on the blanket said “Homer, Alaska.” I don’t know who sent that blanket, but I hope they read this article and know that it did indeed keep a wounded service member warm on a long flight, and that it cheered up another service member, seeing that reminder of home. Whoever you are, thank you.”

Sorry for the delay . . .

Hey all,

Just wanted to drop a quick note and let you know that I probably won't be posting very much until July of 2011. The internet connection here in Afghanistan is spotty at best, and not really conducive to posting. So, have a Happy New Years and check back next summer!