After the food ordeal, I made Jeff and Vivian leave to get breakfast, because they were really hungry and they were “waiting on my food.” I told them that my food was probably coming directly from Russia and that they should eat. They readily agreed.
While they were gone, I had time to sit and think and pray. And to watch some K-Pop music videos, admittedly.
It wasn’t immediate, but I started to feel as though God was with me. I felt Him sitting beside me, relieving the pain from the IV. I felt Him prompting me to sleep, and so for the first time in days, I took a long, peaceful nap.
When I woke up, there was a man standing at the end of my bed, Russian food in hand. Jeff had left money for my food, so I paid him and thanked him, and he left.
That evening, after keeping all of my food down, I threw up most of the fluid I had in me. The doctor resolved that I would stay another night. God had continued to bless me and I was sleeping when my squad leaders arrived that evening.
People everywhere were praying for me; so many people. People I don’t even know. I have never felt so prayed over. The next two days in the hospital are a bit of a blur. I didn’t eat much, didn’t move much, and slept as much as I could. I finally showered, but I put my dirty clothes back on because they were all I had. Jeff had gone back to Teen Challenge, so Vivian and I were left with the squad leaders. After I was released from the hospital and the squad leaders moved on, Vivian and I stayed in Phnom Penh for one more night and waited on our team to pick us up the following day.
It was an odd sort of evening that rarely happens on the race, I think. We had our own double-bed hostel room, television included. There was a supermarket nearby, so we bought deodorant, shower things, and even a set of tweezers. We found these moisturizing facemasks for a dollar per piece, so we bought them and donned them after our showers as a small token of celebration. We were in bed by 9. Probably not the most thrilling way to spend your first night of freedom, but it suited us. It was slow and quiet, just like I’d needed.
The next day the team showed up and announced we were going two places: the killing fields and the zoo. I knew very little about the killing fields, other than that they were a legendary piece of Cambodian History and they had something to do with a genocide; a mass murder of thousands of people.
The killing fields were more gripping than I had imagined. It was somber, and as the man on the headset narrated, we wove our way through grounds that once contained thousands upon thousands of bodies of people from whom life was taken. I thought about my life and how privileged I was to have grown up without the sounds of war and murder ringing in my ears, to be in a family that was not devastated by loss of a mother, father or brother at the hands of a malicious warlord.
The whole afternoon was sobering and I was still pretty wiped out, so when we made it to the zoo (there was a lot of walking around) I opted to sit at the kids’ park instead of run around and see the animals. When my team returned I heard enchanting stories of huge snakes, elephants and monkeys.
I was feeling better. I was eating about the same amount: a large spoonful of rice and two or three fruit slices. I began feeling nauseated again the day after I returned. I fought it back, mostly, but after a day and a half of being nauseous, I started throwing up again. I threw up five times and couldn’t keep water down again. This is when the tears came, too. I didn’t understand, didn’t want to go back to the hospital, and didn’t want to be a burden to my team once again. I wept for a good while, and I pleaded with Jesus to heal me. My team prayed over me. We called Pastor Mop and told him that I needed to go to the hospital once again. He asked if I could wait until the morning, and in an incredibly mortifying moment, his 15 year-old son, Samuel, asked about whether or not I had been able to “pee pee.” The next morning Jeff, Bobbi-Jo and I began the two hour, bumpy trek back to the hospital.
TO BE CONTINUED…
