Never before have I thought of the Seminary as the body of Christ as today. With the recent scare in Mexico City, we have been out of classes for a week. Many of the students left the city.
As we returned to the campus yesterday and today, there are signs up all over telling us to be sure to wash dirty clothes, wash our hands, wear masks, etc. Why? Well, because we are one body.
If one of us gets sick, we will all get sick. We must all take care of each other, doing our part to be clean. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we will affect others. I can only imagine the chaos that would take place at the Seminary if one person came down with the flu. This many people living in close quarters and sharing everything would cause our own little epidemic.
It’s the same way with the body of Christ. If one of us fails, we all fail. If one of us has success, we all have success. Let’s take care of each other.
(image by: bemky on flickr)
Monday afternoon I was playing on the beach with Nathan in Huatulco, Oaxaca, when Janell came running up to me with my cell phone. She was talking with Randy Smith of Youth Ministry International. I took the phone, and Randy told me that the Larry King show had contacted him and wanted to put me on their show that evening (here’s his blog post about the show).
A little later, I was on the phone with one of the producers of the show. She had seen that we had blogged about Swine Flu in Mexico City and was wondering what our experience had been (she had left a comment here on the blog, but I wasn’t checking while on vacation). I told her the basic story, and she said that Larry King would like to interview me about it later that evening. Everything was set up. I was going to be on Larry King.
She asked me to send in some pictures of what we had observed in the airport with the Swine Flu as well as a photo of me. So I did. She called back and said that they would be calling me around 8:05 pm Central Time to do the interview. So I sent out a few tweets and sent emails to our family and friends.
Then, I got another voicemail. It turns out that the show decided to cancel the part of interviewing me. Nancy was super nice throughout the whole process. I imagine that she has to cancel on people all the time. I have to admit I was a little disappointed.
But, at least I have a good story to tell about the day Larry King contacted me!
I was a little bored from not doing anything for the last few days, so I decided to get out of the house and drive around today to see what was going on in Mexico City.
Here’s what I saw.
Paseo de La Reforma is one of the two main roads in Mexico City. Usually, it is bustling with traffic and people. It’s pretty much never this empty, but due to H1N1 (swine flu), today it was fairly empty.
This child street performer dressed up as a lion was also wearing a blue mask today. There were many street vendors still out today, despite the government’s advice to stay home.
The green taxis are an icon of the city. Today, the drivers were wearing masks and rubber gloves. This was the best picture I could get of a gloved taxista.
This week we went on an already planned trip to Huatulco, Mexico. We flew from Mexico City to Huatulco on Sunday and from Huatulco to Mexico City on Wednesday. With the Swine Flu pandemic all over the world having been suspected to originate in Mexico, we expected the airport to be crazy.
There was a military presence there, handing out masks to passengers. We expected to see that because we knew that they were handing out masks to people as they entered the subway. But handing out masks was pretty much the only sign of swine flu pandemic that we saw.
There was also the “screening” that we went through for them to let us on the plane. It consisted of a single sheet of paper (see the photo – click to enlarge) with a few questions on it.
It asked our name, age, gender, and then some very simple symptom questions. Do you have the following symptoms: Fever over 39 degrees Celsius, cough, headache, limb pain, joint pain, eye redness, and nasal flux. Then, it said, “If you have all of these symptoms, we recommend that you postpone your trip and see a doctor.”
That was it. I expected a little more. We got the same form on the way home from the beach.
I read today that they will be doing more screening now at the airports. I wonder what that will be like. I have heard that they will actually take your temperature at the airport. We’ll see what happens.
I’m not sure how Swine Flu jumped from pigs to humans, but here’s one theory:
Just so you know, I don’t think Swine Flu is a laughing matter. I am praying that the outbreak is controlled and that nobody else has to suffer from it, and I am praying for the families of those who have lost loved ones as a result of it.
I just thought the picture was cute.
See my other posts about Swine Flu:
