I’ve been in Sri Lanka coming on 3 weeks now and while the landscape, people, and culture are all beautiful, I have honestly been having a tough time. When we first arrived in Sri Lanka our entire squad had debrief together, and as one of the logistics coordinators of the squad, my days tended to be full and tiring. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job as logistics, but it is still very new. I definitely made some mistakes and am still feeling a bit stressed with learning the ropes of being in a position where organization is the chief priority.
As a result of this, I did not find much time during debrief to process my time in Indonesia or completely prepare myself for this month. Along with feeling unprepared I had a slight problem in the hostel we stayed at for debrief. The problem? – bed bugs. Each night I woke up in the middle of the night uncontrollably itching my arms, feet, and legs. After talking to one of the nurses on our squad we came to the conclusion that I was having an allergic reaction to the bites. Y’all… they looked gross. During the day I tried to have the willpower not to scratch but at 2 am, when all you can do is stare into the dark and think about how itchy your feet are all willpower leaves.
Warning… this next part might be a bit gross so read with caution…
The bites got so bad and so numerous, and my desire to resist scratching had been so exhausted that I reached the point where I scratched open sores onto my feet, which were then being eaten by the flies during the day. I eventually was walking around the hostel in half-calf socks, long pants, and a long shirt in 80 degree weather just to keep he flies off of my open bites. I am embarrassed to say that at one point I did have a bit of an emotional breakdown because of how defeated I felt by these stupid little bugs that I couldn’t even see. Yeah… it was bad.
We then split into our teams for this month (which are different from the teams we’ve been with for the past 2 months) and moved to our designated cities.
I ended up in the mountains and what a blessing that is. I have found that the Lord likes to be on mountains. Exodus 19:3 says “then Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain…” Mathew explains in chapter 14 that Jesus sent his disciples off in a boat and then “he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray.” In 1 Kings 19, the word of the Lord comes to Elijah and the Lord says to him, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” (1 Kings 19:11). I could go on but I think it’s pretty clear as to why I think the Lord likes to hang out on mountains.
So here I am in the mountains of Sri Lanka finding that though it is beautiful, there is a deep feeling of spiritual darkness and a lack of desire for the Lord’s saving grace. People go about their day monotonously without the sense of vibrant life that God provides. It’s difficult for me to see. My team and I have been finding that the most effective avenue here is prayer. We pray over the city, pray for individuals, shops, tourist points as well as show through our actions what the love of Christ looks like. Our desire is to invite the Lord to this mountain in the hopes that his light might reign here.
It has become painfully obvious to us however that the devil wants to combat it.
How you might ask? In short, several of us feel as though we are experiencing some sort of attack, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual and my attack has come in the form of invisible little demons called bed bugs. After we left debrief, I assumed I had left the terror of bed bugs behind me and for about a week and a half I was feeling better as the bites became little scars.
Until….
Yesterday morning I woke up with about 20 bites all over my left foot and ankle. I can’t really express how disheartened I felt to know that I might have to go through that misery all over again. Right away though I knew it was the devil’s attack on me. I am sharing a room with 3 other girls where we are in close quarters and none of them have experienced the bed bug bites.
I thought to myself “Why me? Why do I have to deal with being incessantly uncomfortable and itchy?” It might not sound that bad to you, but when you have 20+ bug bites at all times that you have an allergic reaction to you might think a bit differently.
But then I realized something. This is the devil’s way of trying to discourage me and distract me from the cause of why I am here and I have been allowing myself to succumb to that discouragement. We are not called to give into the devil’s attacks or surrender to his attempts to destroy goodness and light. No. We are called to stand firm with the armor of God fastened tightly to our bodies. We are called to “take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” (Ephesians 6:16). On top of this we are also called to pray. 1 Thessalonians 5:16 says “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances.”
So that’s what I’m going to do. I am going to pray in this circumstance, and I am asking you to pray with me. Pray for my team in this place and pray that the light will overcome the darkness. Also, please pray for the death of every bed bug that wants to bite me because it would be really nice to not have to deal with them anymore. However, regardless of if they stop or continue I will still earnestly pray for the Lord to reign in this place. I appreciate all of your prayers and support! Thanks friends 🙂
