I’m playing catch up on writing blogs as I’m currently in month 9 writing about month 7(whoops). Blogs have been more consistent than podcasts though (I’m sorry!) so I’m gonna take it as a win.
Month 7 was in Eswatini, we had all squad, our mentor and coaches were there doing ministry with us (and Kayla came back to debrief and do ministry with us too!).
Me and both Claires (yea, there are two Claire’s and two Morgan’s on our squad) served at a carepoint most days, which is a place where children come to play, and learn, and be fed. Eswatini has one of the largest orphan populations because it’s the country with the largest percentage of AIDS/HIV and it has affected so many families.
Our carepoint was wild. The kids normally have an adult who is discipling them called a shepherd, our carepoint was in between shepherds and the kids were adorable and rowdy. We sang songs, played games, and fed each one.
One downside to playing with kids is that they are really good at transferring sicknesses, which is how I ended up in the clinic,,,,, 3 different times.
It started cause I just didn’t feel 100% and was throwing up that morning but was gonna just rally and go serve at the care point anyway. Leaders said no, so I went to the clinic with the girls who were going. The doctor said I was fine, probably just had the flu and sent me home. We stopped to get some medicine and snacks and clean water, and I started blacking out in the grocery store. I knew I needed to get home and rest, so I crashed when we got there and then my fever started climbing. I felt so weak and out of it and remember eventually climbing into the bathtub fully clothed just cause it was cooler. That’s how our mentor found me, crying in a bathtub, unable to speak really cause my migraine was so bad, ice pack on my wrist, trying to cool down. She sent me back to the clinic, and I got malaria tested and Covid tested and they gave me something in an iv that was a painkiller/ fever reducer that had me feeling like I was floating and life was good.
second go-round at the clinic
The tests all came back negative, they didn’t know what was wrong, they said probably it was just the flu and sent me home.
I was fine for half a night, and then everything came back full force. I spent several days cooped up in the house, sleeping, sweating, and generally just feeling terrible. Eventually my temp got back up to 104 which when you’re in Africa in a house with no A.C., and sunny days that are around 90F, a fever isn’t fun.
One of these days I was laying in the bed, sweating, and talking to the Lord. I knew it wouldn’t be Covid because of what He had told me (read the Covid blog here), but I was still kind of upset that I was missing everything and sick. Wasn’t God the healer? He corrected that thinking really quickly. Yea, He is the healer, it’s part of His identity that isn’t shaken or changed by my circumstances. Healed is who I am cause I am in Him, and it remains per of my identity whether or not my experience lines up it. God is not reduced to circumstances. A little breeze came through the window, which honestly felt like the Holy Spirit himself blew in. Any sort of air movement in that room was a God send.
We chatted about how I had been missing the little ways God was loving me. Like the breeze, or like the fact that I could be in a house and wasn’t tenting. No matter what I was experiencing He was still loving me through it cause His identity is Love and once again, my circumstances don’t change that.
empty clinic waiting room yet again
Went back a third time cause my fever had turned into stomach problems and the inability to keep anything inside my body. I was constantly dehydrated, regardless of how much water (and blue Powerade) and those nasty tasting hydration pack things (I miss liquid I.v.!) I drank. It was late at night. The clinic was empty except me and my friend, they said we both probably were just needing rehydrating and gave us both I.v.’s. The woman who was doing mine couldn’t figure out how to get it right, ended up with doing it three different places with my veins bulging and bruises forming every time. It was painful. I was exhausted beyond what I normally felt, and I was freezing cold from the I.v.
It hit me that I was once again, alone in a foreign clinic, exhausted, and in pain. I started crying a little bit and for the first time on the race, I wanted to go home. I wanted to be comforted by things I knew and was familiar with.
It was a bit of drama and eventually the night at the clinic ended ( super late, I was falling asleep standing) and we went back. Eventually, my body recovered little by little and one symptom after another stopped popping up.
just two Ohio gals getting taken out by some sort of somethin in Eswatini (still don’t know exactly what it was)
It was disappointing to spend so much of the month not doing ministry and not with the kids, but it taught me many things and reminded me of even more. It also made me appreciate the days I did get to spend with the kids more and made me take more opportunities to hang out and play with them.
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