Water weight and dignity lost, humility and wisdom gained

I work in healthcare at home. I don’t normally get sick. I’m the one taking care of the sick people. My immune system is strong from working in the hospital for so many years. I keep meds on me so that when a teammate is sick, I can give them Tylenol or Motrin or whatever I have. I check their temperatures and make sure they’re staying hydrated and I accompany them to the doctor. I’m not the patient. Or so I thought for the first 4 months of the race. Honestly, I prided myself on not getting sick when everyone else on my team would. I was invincible. New country, new food, new local water each month: ain’t got nothing on me. WRONG.

Enter Month 5 in Myanmar. Yes, we refer to Myanmar as Asian Africa because it’s less progressive than Thailand (Month 4). So, I’m not sure if it was from the water or food or a virus I picked up from a teammate but homegirl got sick. I had a GI bug with diarrhea and I was down for the count for 24 hours. I literally laid in bed for a full day and hardly ate anything and was weak and dizzy. Then it took a few days for my stomach to fully recooperate. I hate being sick and missing out and being unproductive. But I had finally succumbed to the ever-prevalent GI illness so common because our bodies have to continually adapt to a new country. Once we get adjusted to one country, we leave for the next. My pride took a hit, because I don’t get sick. But, I was grateful it hadn’t come til month 5 when all my original team initially got sick Month 1.

I thought I was in the clear. But literally, a week or so later, I got the same GI symptoms again. I was out for a day again, too weak to get out of the bed. Feeling like a failure and a weakling, because I missed my first day of ministry on the race and what was our last day of ministry in Myanmar. I was upset I was sick again and this time, I was functional but it took at least a week for my stomach to be semi-normal and I was just tired of it.

Flash forward to Month 6 in Nepal, day 3 at our ministry site and I get sick for the 3rd time in a month’s span while on a bumpy, harrowing, car sickness-inducing, mountainside bus ride where I can’t go to the bathroom for 5 hours. Then I miss our first ministry day in a new village and spend the day overheated on my sleeping pad, going back and forth to the communal squatty potty every 1-2 hours. Taking turns with my other teammate who was sick with the same symptoms. I even literally pooped my pants at one point. Humility: ?.  At least this time I had a friend in the same boat but I hated that this was my first impression with our new hosts. I cried the night we arrived. I think because I was just so overwhelmed and frustrated that I couldn’t do ministry and was missing out on everything with my lovely teammates and fun hosts. So, of course I recover within 24 hours (Because my God is good) and am okay miraculously the next day to make it through a pretty grueling hike up the mountain for ministry.

So, why do I tell you all this? Not really sure exactly. I don’t want your pity. I’m perfectly fine and am very grateful for the Lord’s healing each time. I’m also thankful for my good general health as we encounter actual sick, diseased people everyday and teammates on the squad have been much sicker than me (i.e. broken ankles, malaria, typhoid, emergency appendectomy to name a few). I guess I’m writing this blog to externally process what I’ve learned through my bouts of GI illness.

I’ve had to step back and realize how arrogant I was about being healthy and being above being sick. Really, anytime I am healthy is a gift from the Lord and the fact that I haven’t actually been to a clinic or hospital as a patient is such a blessing. I’ve learned it’s okay not to always be okay and that the world will go on without you and sometimes you have to put your body’s health above ministry. I’ve learned that you need to depend on your teammates sometimes and to stop being so independent and let them take care of you, because actually they do a pretty good job and are super thoughtful. It’s humbling to be the sick one and it reminds you that we are part of the body of Christ and we all need each other and sometimes it’s your job to be the helper and sometimes you are the one being helped. And there’s a time to fill both roles.

I also learned that sometimes God allows sickness and bad things to happen to you for His purposes and we don’t always get to know why. We just have to trust Him and cry out to Him and going through the valley with Him often builds intimacy. So, as much as I hate to say this, I’m grateful for my GI illnesses. It’s taught me humility, patience, perseverance, gratefulness, and trust. I am so well taken care of in my new team and it’s cool that I got sick only with my new team so that I could realize how much they truly love me already in this first 1.5 months together. The Lord is good all the time and all the time the Lord is good. Amen.

“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

?2 Corinthians? ?12:9-10?