The past ten days have been very eventful–between the highs of VBS, ministry, and caffeine (from the ever-obliging Starbucks) and the lows of klutziness, terribly”unfit-ness,” and a mysterious sickness, it has been a roller coaster ride. Check out these blogs for the good stuff.
As for the not so good– I fell down twice within four days. The first time, I slipped
(Downtown Manila @ 7AM on a Sunday morning)
on the stairs and bounced down half a flight, desperately grasping the siderails to slow my impact, which resulted in not only a sore bum but sore triceps from the exerted effort. Oops. So not easy to lift and play with babies when your arms are sore.
A few days later, I was doing laundry. I had to take a friend’s out to put mine into the machine, so I switched them and was headed out to hang his on the line when I misstepped (again) and fell flat on my face (I suppose one arm tried to save me because my shoulder was terribly sore for a few days afterwards). I was covered in dirt, and despite myself, tears began to roll down my cheeks. I rolled myself over (now doubly coated in dirt) and sat down for a moment, hurt, tired and feeling sorry for myself. I was in the middle of a double shift (9:30AM-9:15PM) at the Childrens’ Home after a late night out with the girls, and just wanted to get some laundry done so I’d have clean underwear for the next week.
I sat there and cried, wishing someone would come along to lift me up. A stranger walked by, without so much as a second glance. He’s probably thinking what a silly little girl, crying about falling down when people are starving next door.
Why God? Why did I fall down again? I thought I had outgrown my klutzy phase and here I am falling twice in a week.
Then Dexter, a guy who works at K.I.M. walked down the stairs. He saw me sitting there, pathetically tearing up and coated in dirt, and offered me a hand up. He asked if I was okay. I said, yes, just tripped, silly me. He encouraged me to dust off, and gave me a smile. I wiped off the dirt, dried my tears, and finished the laundry, thankful the Lord had sent someone to pull me out of the dirt (literally).
The next day (this is a misnomer, it was more like later that evening), it was time for the 5k. I had signed up with 30 or so of my other Racers, intending to walk most, if not all, of it. We left at 3:45AM and headed to downtown Manila, eventually ending up with a security guard escort (as we had gotten lost). The race was a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity. Some squadmates ran a 10k, and the even crazier (and fitter) ones ran a half marathon.
I’ll be honest-I struggled with the 5K. I haven’t exercised much since being on the Race. New Zealand I was just kind of lazy, Australia I sweated enough just by existing, and here..well, there always seems to be something more fun to do.
So essentially, I did this 5K with absolutely no training–?just walked into it, like 3 miles, NBD (no big deal). Whoops. A little harder than I thought, especially at 6am, with a sore shoulder, an unfit body, and ill-fitting exercise pants.
But I finished. In 47 minutes. No record setting here, but my goal was 45 minutes, so I almost made it. Our team has joked about running a few more-one on each continent-maybe in Africa.
The best part of the whole thing? I ran it all with my pants on backwards.
Unfortunately, after I finished the race, my head started to hurt. At first it was just a dull pain, and I figured I was probably just hungry (a muffin with some peanut butter doesn’t have terrific sticking power). So we went to a sweet restaurant, Heaven, Eggs and Rock n Roll. I enjoyed being there with my fellow racers, but was also exhausted. My head began to hurt a little more, and by the time we were sitting in traffic going back to K.I.M. I could barely keep my eyes open.
When we got home, I felt feverish. I took my temperature (99.7), took some aleve, and slept. And slept some more. My temperature kept rising (all the way to 102.1), and everything hurt. I couldn’t differentiate between race soreness and body aches. I figured I had the flu. I hoped it was the flu, and not something worse. The next 8 hours were fairly excruciating. I don’t do well sick. Thankfully, God has kept me healthy for most of the race so far, and this was the first taste I had of the truly ugly.
[Team K after the 5k–@the FINISH LINE!]
Around 6:45, Noe came to check on me. I said I had a fever and he touched my head and jumped back…guess it was hot. “You could fry an egg on your forehead.” Yikes. So he prayed for me. I fell back asleep after a dinner of crackers and water, my prayer simply that I would be healthy for VBS the next morning.
At 9:45, I woke again. I felt fine, good even. The headache which had plagued me all day was gone. My clothes were drenched in sweat, but my fever was gone–98.4! I quickly got up, showered, changed, and climbed back into bed, grateful to be healthy again. God healed me!! Normally, the flu should last multiple days, but I was better in hours! Praise God!
I’m not sure what the lessons are in two falls, a 5k and a fever, other than, like always, God was with me through it all; each time I fell, to get up again, and send people to me to help me. To run alongside me.
To care for me in my illness, to lift me up in prayer, and ask God to heal me, which He did, because He is a good and faithful God. Amen.
Charity and Me Walk/Running the 5K-we stuck together for nearly all of it, and crossed the finish line together!
