Wednesday 8 July 2020

This Book Can Change Your Life




If you feel you have been called but there are forces working against your God-chosen dream, this book is the right book to read. It will change your life.

My blog is turning a year old this month of July and I am grateful to you all for drifting with me!

Cheers,


Olivia














Monday 24 February 2020

WOULD YOU WALK AWAY?



 
Hello friends,




Here is a simple flower arrangement I made with some deliciously sweet-smelling cherry blossoms that I pick along the way in my neighbourhood. As soon as I enter my kitchen, the scent is so amazing!
Speaking as a novice in flower arranging, I think everyone can be creative with flowers. I am certain that I am every professional flower arranger’s  nightmare as I just do what comes from my heart and I am aware that I break all the rules! Surely, I would love to hear your comments about it!

I am glad to be back with another extract from Chapter Five, a continuation from last week’s. It is to me the meeting centre of rivers from different streams, like a divine resolution. But you need to read it yourself and make your own decisions, just as we see Nicole making hers in this extract! Meanwhile, let’s read…




  

Eventually, after eight hours, all the mayhem caused by the nature of the emergency abated.    Only then was she able to look at her patient.
      According to handover, he was thirty five years old. She dabbed his face with a flannel. He was still unconscious and looked completely lifeless.
     The old ventilator had to do all the breathing for him. There were complex lines crisscrossing over him; ventilator tubes, multiple intravenous lines and electrodes, which attached him to the heart monitor. A chest drain was also in place because his left lung had collapsed.
    Nicole noted with sadness that throughout the numerous interventions, constant monitoring, and probing, Father Angelo Giordani lay there, motionless and defenceless, oblivious to everything.
    Although exhausted, she wondered about his life, his family and about being a missionary priest. She needed to get more information from his friend, the other stricken missionary priest, and she also resolved to find out as soon as she could if anyone had even bothered to update him on the situation.
She thought of her patient’s name – Father Angelo Marcello Giordani – and repeated it several times to herself. She was certain that she had never heard a more beautiful name. Softly, she called out to him but was aggrieved by his lack of response.
     It was Friday, January 5. As Nicole wrote the date in his nursing notes, she remembered that it was the eve of the Epiphany, when the church celebrated the visitation of Casper, Melchior, and Balthasar, the three wise men (or the Magi) from the East, who, by following a star, were led to the Christ Child in Bethlehem. Nicole wondered what became of their lives after their discovery of Christ.
    Sorrowfully, she pondered over the destiny of this priest, who had come dramatically, from a different East, by a very different method and in a very different manner.
    Nicole was scheduled to be off for the next six weeks as she had outstanding annual leave. This meant that her leave days would more than cover the one month’s notice she was required to work before her planned resignation.
    The letter!
    She suddenly remembered! Putting her hand into her pocket, she took out the resignation letter, which she had written earlier that very day. With the letter in her hand, she slowly looked up. And for some moments she stood, painfully deliberating in silence, whilst sadly studying Father Angelo.
   The ventilator was making his every breath; the beeping of the cardiac monitor was monitoring his every heartbeat.
   The choice was entirely hers. She could choose to walk away from it all and never come back…Carefully, she wiped away the sweat that trickled from his dark brown hair. He had short black stubble around his mouth and over his chin, which extended to the sides of his face. She found herself looking into the face of abject hopelessness
    Would there be anyone willing to sacrifice their time and remain by his side and care for him from their heart, here in this place?
   As she intensely deliberated over this, she instinctively became extremely concerned and even protective. It was all too clear that she could no longer resign.
    She knew that she could not leave him.
   “Heavenly Father,” she prayed, “You brought this priest son to me at the time of my weak and most miserable moments and put me in this position where I find no strength to walk away from him. But what then, my Father – what guarantee do I have that if I decide to remain here at St Michael’s for his sake, that you will also allow him to remain in the land of the living for my sake?”
Sighing and turning back to her patient, she said sadly but firmly, “Father Angelo, I can never leave you! I pray that it will be the same for you.”
    A quick decision was made. Glancing once more at him, she took a deep breath, tore up the resignation letter and threw the crumpled up shreds into the bin. She made the mental note to phone home to tell her mother that she was staying at the hospital overnight. She prayed inwardly that the phone would be working. Thankfully, her two little girls were spending the weekend with Samantha, her aunt. Her seventeen-year-old twin brothers were due to join them the following day.
Yes, she thought she would linger on and make sure the antiquated ventilator did not pack up. For the sake of Father Angelo, she would not resign.
    She would not walk away.

***

 “Nurse, Nurse Nicole, my apologies!”
    Nicole turned to see the Franciscan priest friend enter with the other two Portuguese medics from Mozambique. He was still clutching the small bag, looking at her with moist, red eyes. Wordlessly, she beckoned them in.
    For some time, they stood around Father Angelo, taking in all that was happening to their friend, from head to toe. Their look of compassion and sorrow was immeasurable. They stood in silence blinking back their tears. Nicole watched, with eyes resting on each one of them in turn and finally moving back to the patient.
    When she looked up again, she saw all three pairs of eyes looking at her. She took the Franciscan’s hands in hers and held them tightly. He responded by grasping hers for some time and then he tearfully raised her hand to his lips.
   “Nurse Nicole!” he acknowledged in an unspoken bond. The two medics repeated his actions, saying her name in the same manner.
   After some time, in reasonable English, he explained, “Please excuse me, Nurse Nicole, I have to leave my brother, Padre Giordani…Angelo. I, er…have no means to remain. There is no one else except myself in charge of the mission. In the morning, Epiphany, I have to go back to receive truck with food to feed the mission children or … or they starve and much worse, tomorrow it is weekend. Forgive me…”
   He looked straight into her eyes. “Forgive my, er…impudence, even presumption…I wrote on hospital document for, er… name of Next of Kin, I wrote: first, Nicole Anderson then, second, myself, Padre Carlos Rodrigues, because I am now going back to Mozambique.”
   He awaited her response and seeing her nod in acquiescence, he breathed a sigh of relief and continued, “He has only one living blood relative – his mother, Sofia. She is in Italy. Not so well you see. His father is dead, brother is dead – younger brother – motorbike accident, some years ago. So now when I go – when we go,” he indicated to the two other medics, “he will have only Nurse Nicole Anderson!”
   He turned to his companions and, in Portuguese, he interpreted this solemnity. They, in turn, nodded in acknowledgement. He continued with the same seriousness, “Nurse Nicole Anderson, I saw everything you did out there! I saw you make Sign of the Cross on our Angelo. Ah! I saw!” He pointed expressively to his eyes.
   “And I knew. I knew your heart. You will look after our Angelo. You see, our Angelo is so special, a true brother. Padre Angelo and myself, we trained at the same seminary in Rome. I always tell him: I always say, ‘Angelo, your father may be Italian and your mother may be, er …Scottish-Italian but you are more Portuguese like me.’ Myself, I am from Lisbon, Portugal.”
   Nicole smiled at hearing this. “My father was Scottish,” Nicole stated.
   Padre Carlos’ eyes lit up. He translated what she said to the other two medics with such joy. “Ah! So you, too, are Scottish! Like our Angelo! And what is the other part?”
   “Zulu. My mother’s father was Zulu and my mother’s mother was Scottish. Complicated ingredients.”
   “Zulu-Scottish!” he grinned and slapped his hand joyfully over his brown habit and repeated, joined by the other two.
   “Scottish-Zulu! My first time to hear!” Padre Carlos shook his head. I always thought Angelo was the strange one: Italian-Scottish. Scottish-Italian. But Zulu-Scottish! Scottish-Zulu! This is wonderful! An answer to prayer!” He looked at his companions and then back at her. “You are both Scottish blood. Your blood and Angelo… the same. Perhaps even the same clan!” They all laughed.
   “So now, Nurse Nicole, you are truly Next of Kin.” He became very solemn. “This man, this priest, is your flesh and blood!”
   He turned to the little bag. “This is all his possessions. You keep. I already wrote it down in the office of the matron. Here is his most important possession – his crucifix. Please, please put it back on him when all this goes.” He indicated to all the electrodes and tubes on Father Angelo’s chest.
“The Franciscan habit… you keep! I am sorry, it needs a wash.”
   He put his head to one side apologetically. “That’s Franciscan earthly treasure – after Bible, crucifix and rosary.”
   From a green plastic bag, he extracted a neatly folded purple garment, which lay in one corner of the bag. “Then next, so important, is this! Priestly stole!So important! Nurse Nicole. You must understand the mission of a priest, like Christ, in union with proclaiming the Gospel, He came to set captives free – with His Blood.”

***

The question I am leaving with after reading this passage is: Would you choose to walk away or stay when God places a certain responsibility in your hands? This passage touches my heart as it shows how God’s will operates in ways more complex than we can perceive.
Cheers!

Olivia




Thursday 6 February 2020

THE WORDS WE SPEAK

Hello Friends,





What do you think of my latest little floral design? I actually made it out of the flowers I rescued from one I previously made!


How are you all doing in this month of February? Recently, I’ve been focusing and paying more and more attention to words.


WORDS


W
ords we speak, words we say to each other, and words we say about each other. Why do these words of our mouth have so much power to build or to destroy someone? After all, words are just words! Or aren’t they?

Recently one of my daughters broke down in tears - and I so did I. It was the first time she was actually able to tell me what she went through in her high school - being bullied. It was the first time she was able to go through that dark passage and express all the things that happened to her. All the things that the bullies did to her- and it seemed what was even worse and more devastating were the WORDS they spoke to her and said about her.
These WORDS formed part of her growing life and she struggled finding her true identity. These NEGATIVE WORDS practically coexisted and formed the backdrop of her struggles to fit into a world that is ever-changing.
Any child, adolescent and even adult feels they need to fit into a society and be accepted in whatever place they are. As a parent listening to my child as she narrated her struggle, I can tell you I felt sick. 
Just last year I heard a tragic story of how a young person, not even 16 yet, took his own  life because of being bullied at school. That child couldn’t take it anymore and didn’t even have the strength to tell his parents as he feared the repercussions from the bullies.  It was too late when they found out just how bad it was for their child.  The  hospital's Intensive Care Unit had to switch off the life-support machine for that dear child.  There was nothing else they could do to save his life.
This is what bullying did. It took away the life of a child. An innocent child. It took the life of someone’s child, someone’s brother, someone’s grandson, someone’s friend! Now tell me!
As a parent, when the effects of bullying visits your home -it is life changing.  As I write my heart is appalled.  I am steeped in sorrow. Thankfully we could walk through the dark past with my daughter. She is beautiful with an exquisite heart. She needed to know that.  A ray of light did come out of her experience:
She realized that she had been living under the shadow of  her peers’ NEGATIVE WORDS. With strength she was able to rise up and declare that neither did her peers nor their WORDS define who she was! Also she intends to help children who go through things like that. She also plans to go BACK to her high school as a guest speaker and talk to the teenagers there. She wants them to know about the effects of bullying-and what all bullies in the world should know! 
Amen!!!
The WORDS we speak, how powerful WORDS are! No child or person should ever have to go through things like that. EVER!
One of the things my daughter said in her sorrow was, ‘Mum, I forgive and actually feel sorry for those girls - they must’ve been so unhappy in their own lives to do such terrible things to others!’
I pray that the healing process has begun  in my girl and pray the same  will happen for many others who had gone through this  terrible suffering.
Please everyone, let us be more attentive to the words of our mouth. Let us be careful about what we say especially over our children and each another. Once a word is spoken good or bad we cannot retract it. WORDS have far-reaching effects.
So let our words pure and lovely and acceptable to the ear. We all have a duty to build each other up and not to tear  down that which God has made so perfectly.
I will be continuing to talk about the power of the spoken WORD.

As we return and flip through the pages of The Next of Kin,  we encounter the doctors working on Fr Angelo.  In Chapter Five Fr Angelo is unconscious and very gravely ill. The doctors are frantically working on him. The junior doctor asks the consultant what Angelo’s prognosis is. The matron gets very upset and tells the medical team that it is not right for them to discuss over Angelo. The Matron says, “Er… maybe we shouldn’t talk over the patient. Whilst a patient maybe unconscious, we must be very aware that they are still able to hear us, according to my training, old fashioned though it may seem to be.”
She adds that, “One can always discuss it outside – but never within the patient’s hearing – because the last vestige of hope, which may still be residing in the subconscious and in his spirit, might just be put out forever!”

What the Matron means is that even if Angelo is unconscious, he is still able to hear and process what they are saying. And if their words are negative, even the last vestige of hope that may have been residing in his subconscious mind would be shattered.
So friends let me know what you think of WORDS.

God Bless you all!


Olivia











Wednesday 29 January 2020

'INTO YOUR HANDS' Continued...



Dear Friends,


Candy

We say hello to you all and to my daughter Candy.
Candy says that above is a better picture of her 21st birthday party with Marie Antoinette as the theme.
What a delightful distraction!
What do you think?
Was it Marie Antoinette whose famous words were ‘Let them eat cake!’
when she was told that the people did not have bread to eat? 
Ha ha ha! But Candy thinks she was misquoted!
What do you think?

🍋🍋


Last week I offered you an extract from Chapter 5 (Into Your Hands).
We encounter Nicole for the first time. She is certainly not having a good time in her work at St Michaels Hospital.  She is extremely distressed and wanting to resign from her job! However, before she can utter another word to Matron, she finds herself thrown into extraordinary events. A mysterious Catholic priest with an equally mysterious illness is the cause of the emergency and all the upheaval in Matron’s well-ordered hospital.
In the last scene, the doctors and nurses had started resuscitating Angelo. But something seems not quite right. It also seems that something really extraordinary is happening at another level.
This is so exciting!
So let’s continue from where we left off.





…The Franciscan froze. Noisome crows announced their presence with their vulgar and disconcerting caws. Exasperated, Matron Josephine shooed them off in the Name of God. Someone flung a stone at them. The man in the brown habit looked heavenward and made a desperate supplication to God.
There was a leak in the resuscitator bag and the endotracheal tube had a fault! The priest’s chest was not rising with each ventilation. He was not getting any oxygen and his colour was deteriorating!
“Bloody Heck! This can’t possibly be happening!” exclaimed a desperate consultant, turning pale as he took the bag from Nicole. “Someone! Get this flipping bag to work and give me another tube! He’s got a carotid pulse, but he’s not going to hold out for much longer! He needs rescue breaths! We can’t lose him!” He quickly removed the endotracheal tube and replaced it with an airway.
Mr Davis met Nicole’s determined look and he nodded.
Nicole gave the young priest the kiss of life.
Maintaining his airway, she pinched his nose, and taking a deep breath, she sealed his lips with hers and blew into his mouth at regular intervals.
With her lips tightly sealed to his, and with every life-saving breath, Nicole became more and more oblivious to the world around her.
The priest in the brown habit took in the scene. He raised his eyes briefly towards heaven and was just in time to see three dazzling white doves make a slow and circular flight pattern above him before disappearing into the radiant sky. He trembled violently and prayed with equal violence.
Something deep and inexplicable transpired.
Three crows reappeared from the north and circled silently and ominously above, casting their shadows over the team beneath them.
Suddenly, from the east, a dove whose snow white feathers dazzled in the blazing sunlight swooped into the circle. With the swiftness of an eagle and the precision of a warrior’s arrow, it engaged and disrupted the enemy, causing a wild fracas in the air.
The open heaven became a dramatic meeting place, a compelling centre stage, and a vicious battlefield, where the merciless shackles of death and darkness contended with pre-eminence of a love so tenacious and so formidable.
A passionate duel for the life of the ailing priest seemed to unfold.
All the while, the medical team watched the patient’s chest rise and fall with every breath. Although there was a notable improvement in his colour, the atmosphere remained tense and sweat ran down their faces as they exchanged anxious glances.
After making the Sign of the Cross, the Franciscan turned his attention back to Nicole’s passionate life-saving actions. Her sandy brown curls had tumbled over her face and her hair was wild.
The Franciscan watched with great wonder.
The manual resuscitator bag was successfully repaired and a new tube was inserted and secured.  As Nicole squeezed the bag at regular intervals, she saw the patient’s chest rise and fall. All the while she prayed fiercely to God.
Please, Lord!
Nicole quickly glanced heavenward. The Franciscan priest, who stood very close by, saw this brief tearful look towards heaven and struggled to wipe away his own tears. The tears ran like rivulets and disappeared into his short, curly beard, before flowing over Nicole’s down-turned head. He held even more tightly on to the bag he was carrying, his knuckles white and his hands trembling uncontrollably. His English was relatively limited and he did not seem to understand all that was being said by the doctors.
“Can’t get a blood pressure…”
“That’s it! Get the drip going…”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! The bloody vein…it’s not going to last!”
“We need to rush inside now!”


***


Everything was happening so quickly. Soon he was in the ward where the other teams joined in. He was connected to a ventilator from Anaesthetic Room 3A. Because the peripheral veins were shutting down, a central line had to be put into a large vein and fluid challenges given.
“We’ve got a blood pressure!” said Dr Llewellyn, the registrar, after tense, agonising moments.
“But she ain’t that pretty and she’s still down to her boots!” said Freddy, the junior doctor.
“Who are we talking about?”
“The blood pressure!”
“Why does everything negative in your mind has to be a girl?” complained Dr Sarah.
“Oh, don’t worry about Freddy! He’s got a girlie issue at the moment. His true love found new love!”
“Maybe he ain’t doing something right,” Dr Sarah stated.
“He’s too skinny. Maybe those bones get in the way. Girls want brawn… like mine!” Dr Llewellyn flexed a muscle or two.
“Tell you what; it’s that long nose of his. It gets in the way of a good kiss!”
“Ouch, guys! You do realize that I am actually present and in deep emotional pain? Winced Dr Freddy.
“We need to catheterise… I can’t palpate a bladder… Possible renal failure, “Dr Meaghan looked dismayed.
The doctors continued to work frantically for many hours.


***


“He’s going into multi-organ failure…”
“Sepsis…”
“The source…?”
“Ugh man, it could be anything… anything! Man, this guy’s a missionary. He lives in the deep jungle,” remarked Dr Llewellyn.
“Definite malaria?”
“Till the slides and blood results come back,” Mr Davis shrugged, “we’ll have to treat him for suspected cerebral malaria and septicaemia. Let’s get those antibiotics going. There is no telling…”
“Do we rule out snakebite?”
“Ha…?”
“Sleeping sickness? He could have been bitten by the tsetse fly!”
“Has anyone thought about the scorpion?” asked someone.
“Or spiders! What about the black widow?”
“Isn’t that found in the temperate zones like North America and East Asia?” asked Meaghan.
“For heaven’s sake, do we need a compendium of the terrors of the jungle?” cut in Matron caustically.
“Are the X-rays on their way, Matron? It shouldn’t take this long,” remarked Mr Davis.
“Hey, the blood pressure is looking a bit better,” Dr Llewellyn observed.
“His cardiac rhythm seems… look… I don’t like those huge ectopic heartbeats… Do a repeat electrocardiogram. I don’t like that look. Poor guy!”
“Mr Davis – what is his prognosis?” asked Dr Freddy.
“What do you think?”
“Er… maybe we shouldn’t talk over the patient. Whilst a patient maybe unconscious, we must be very aware that they are still able to hear us, according to my training, old fashioned though it may seem to be,” reminded Matron. “One can always discuss it outside – but never within the patient’s hearing – because the last vestige of hope, which may still be residing in the subconscious and in his spirit, might just be put out forever!”
Mr Davies rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, what Matron says is true.” Mr Davies never hid his love-hate relationship and irritations between himself and the hospital matron. They always seemed to be at loggerheads regarding the whole business of running the hospital. She might be the matron, but he, as Director, felt that she continually sought to undermine his authority.
Nicole was relieved to see some signs of renal function even though the hourly amount of urine she was emptying from the catheter bag never exceeded more than two tablespoons.
Her hope was short-lived. As she looked up from carrying out these measurements, she saw the consultant’s sign language to the junior doctor: the prognosis for the missionary priest was a definite thumbs-down.
Her heart was solely troubled. …



                                         ***


I hope you are feeling the pulse of the story through the emotions in this scene. As for now, let us take a break. We will continue with Chapter 5 because I want you to taste the whole of it!

Cheers,


Olivia
















Friday 17 January 2020

YEAR OF JOURNEYING WITHIN MYSELF


Greetings Friends,

I hope you are well. I have a good message for you but before you read it below, let me introduce you to my 'birthday girl' and the cake I made for her!



Here is a cake I made for my daughter Candy's 21st 

birthday. What do you think of it?



My daughter Candy wearing a Marie Antoinette dress as that was the theme for her birthday.

***


W
 e are now over two weeks into 2020 and yet it still feels so surreal.  Does anyone else feel the same way?  I feel I still need to catch up with 2020.  I have been caught up between working and the grandchildren, hence all my intended goals for this year are still jumbled in my head!
I have set aside these few days to make time to just sort it all out and write the goals down clearly in a journal. I need a vision! I am told that where there is no vision, people perish! I am also told that I must write  down the vision/goal, read it regularly and believe in it!
To be honest with you I am good at writing all the  New Year’s resolutions yet swiftly forgetting them the rest of the year. But folks this is a different year! (Trust me!) Honest.
Have you ever felt that you need some things in your life to change? I truly believe that the desire to change begins in one’s heart. There is a certain stirring - a persistent niggle that something has certainly got to change. 
Have you ever felt like you have been stuck on one level and you start to look at yourself. You re-evaluate yourself and realize that life has so much more to offer.
The post-Christmas and New Year’s exhaustion has resulted in me running on survival mode.
But now, I have to attend to that SOS in my soul. I have to make a JOURNEY within myself and address the changes I need to make. This can only be done in SILENCE.
I have to start with small steps at a time.
So tomorrow when I drop my grandson at his nursery, I shall head for the Meadows which are only five minutes away. When I walk through the gates of the Meadows my back will be turned to the traffic and I enter into this world, a Paradise of SILENCE.  I will feel a tangible shift within myself as I walk deeper alongside nature. I can see myself inhaling the fragrance of the rain-soaked earth as I regain my equilibrium.
I so long for this time to go within myself and establish where I am going.
Like Angelo, the protagonist in The Next of Kin, I too believe in visions and dreams.

We have to believe that all things are possible with God.
It is sometimes so hard to lift my eyes from the earthly reality I see every day and focus on the realms of supernatural intervention which make the impossible possible.
Jesus tells us to ‘only believe!’  That means we have to believe not only when things are going well but especially and continuously and faithfully when we are facing deep harrowing situations. Faith calls for courage. The Bible says that we must make the vision clear! Write it down! It surely come to pass.

Habakkuk 2:2-3

“Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so he may run who reads it.
For still the vision awaits its appointed time;
it hastens to the end—it will not lie.
If it seems slow, wait for it;
it will surely come; it will not delay.

So Friends let us gather round and write down our visions and dreams and place them in the hands of God and believe. ONLY BELIEVE!




Until we meet next week, cheers!


Olivia