It occurred to me after posting my last blog update that I
forgot to update you all on my health.
I had posted that my team leader suspected that I might have Malaria,
and thought I should get tested.
Anyone who knows me at all knows that I am extremely afraid
of needles! So I was very unhappy
to learn that a blood test was the way to determine if one has Malaria! But I really trust Kristen, and if she
thought that I needed to get checked out, I believed her. So we went to the “American Clinic”
here in Phnom Penh. In fact, there
were no Americans working there- just one Cambodian doctor. Our old friend, the “language barrier”
was in full force- and this did not do much to make me feel better about the
whole ordeal.
The doctor did not think that I had Malaria because it
supposedly doesn’t exist here in the city. But he thought that I might have Dengue Fever. I had never heard of it, but was
disappointed to learn that the test for that one is by blood also. Super. So the doctor decided to test me for both viruses, you know,
just in case. I was a big baby
about the whole thing, but Kristen was very kind to me.
Come to find out, I did, in fact, have Dengue. Allegedly, I was supposed to be pretty
sick for about 2 weeks and really worn down for another 2 weeks. But my team wanted nothing to do with
that- so they prayed over me repeatedly.
And even though my symptoms showed up on Sunday night/Monday morning, I was completely better by Thursday night.
That is something that I have really loved about this trip
and my team- we pray for each other all of the time and the Lord has really
blessed those prayers.
In other news, I have decided that I am completely fed up
with myself for not having read the whole Bible. I have been a Christian for 7 years… WHAT AM I WAITING FOR?!
So I have decided to do a reading plan wherein I will read
through the whole Bible in 90 days- which will have me finish up before I
return home. I am not sure if I
will be very good at keeping up with it when things get a bit more hectic- this
plan has me reading about 16 chapters per day. I am only on “day 2” today, and already I have
noticed a few things just because I am reading straight through and there isn’t
weeks and months in between reading things. Pretty cool.
We are leaving Cambodia a week from Monday and heading over to Thailand. I have mixed feelings about that. I don’t really mind Cambodia, but Thailand is the country I was most excited to visit and do anti-trafficking work in. Also, from the sounds of it, we will be working a lot more directly with the issue when we are in Thailand. I don’t feel like I accomplished much in my time in Cambodia- but of course, that is by my rubric and not God’s. Who knows what He has done with this time? I may never know, but what I do know is that: I am glad that I am here, I am thankful for this opportunity, and I am excited that the Lord continues to wreck me and change me.
