There comes a time in every World Racer’s life for lice…and well, this is apparently my time. I have never had lice before and because my head never itched, I’ve only gotten checked once and that was months ago. Well when my teammate’s head started to itch I said ‘what the heck, I’ll get checked too’, and yep, they found the motherload in my head. I apparently have a very healthy family of lice calling my head home. Not too sure how long the few of us on team Apex have had lice but chances are they will probably be sticking around for the rest of the Race. You don’t come across lice treatments all too often in Middle-of- Nowhere, Africa. But I’ve accepted the fact that I will have lice for the rest of the Race and I’m actually fine with it. Other squadmates who have had lice say they freaked out for about 2 weeks but I figure this is another lesson that God is teaching me and I’m accepting all lessons I can take on the World Race. So I prayed for God to reveal to me any lesson He wants me to get out of this. And I got an answer pretty quick.
He wants me to pour 100% into the orphans.
He wants me to love them better.
He doesn’t want me to hold anything back the next 4 ½ months.
I held my baby in Burma all night while he slept but I did keep a safe distance from his head to ensure any lice that inhabited his head would not jump on mine. I loved the children in India and I gave many many hugs to the little ones in Nepal but again kept my locks a safe distance away. But God called me on this Race to give up everything, and that includes my body.
I found out that I had lice on Thursday night and not even 24 hours later God put the lesson He was teaching me to the test. We put on soccer and surfing camps every week day and I have been hanging out with the children that are too small to play soccer. I was sitting on a rock, overlooking gorgeous Coffee Bay, South Africa, building sand castles when a group of girls decided they wanted to practice African hairbraiding on me. Knowing that most street kids / orphans / children in third world countries have lice I would probably be a little hesitant of letting all of them bombard my head. But I gave my head to them and although it was painful they had a blast playing with my ‘beautiful hair’. One of them would stop braiding and giggle and all the other girls would stop and start giggling too, I guess they found my lice pretty funny.
I am loving this lesson that God is teaching me and I am truly okay with having lice for the next 4 1/2 months. Loving all the orphans and street kids is totally worth it J
