Over the last 9 years I have struggled with back problems. I have heard enough about discs, vertebrates, herniation, and what not to last me a lifetime.
Coming on the Race this was probably one of my biggest concerns personally. What am I going to do if my back gets messed up? A year ago this week this fear was even stronger. At training camp we did a team building exercise where we tied together and forced to do a number of random exercises. The first set of these exercises were burpies.
I went down. I jumped back. I jumped forward. And I did not stand back up.
Somewhere in there something in my back pulled and it HURT. I tried really hard to convince the girls I was with that I was fine. None of them bought it. (It may have had something to do with the tears running down my face.)
They forced me to stop. To not participate. Even though that meant they had to do more of each exercise. They fought for me fiercely when our staff person told me to keep going. These women whom I barely knew were adamant that they were going to take care of me.
That day a lot of people prayed healing over me, including the director of Adventures in Missions himself. I was still in pain and still completely overwhelmed by everything at training camp. That night I went to bed under a tarp in the woods, and woke up completely able to do everything I needed to do. The pain wasn’t there like I had expected it to be.
It was that day that I decided that God was going to give me the strength I needed to make it through each day of this adventure.
So every time this year that I have had pain in my back I’ve trusted that I was going to wake up fine. I was going to wake up and be able to do ministry. And that was completely true until last week.
It’s a kind of funny story. My team leader Hannah and I were just shoveling away at some dirt. Moving it from one pile to another (oh the joy of manual labor), and talking about my spine. I explained my reasoning of why I had never had the squad pray over it, saying that it was just another way for God to prove himself to me and prove his faithfulness, and the day I couldn’t do ministry because of my back was the day we should start praying.
Over the course of two days we shoveled a lot a lot of dirt, and on the second day I was feeling it pretty bad. My teammates could tell and just like at training camp they made me stop. They made me sit down and watch them work so that I could feel better.
I went to bed last Friday with full faith that I was going to wake up fine on Saturday morning. Just like every other day on the Race. However when I woke up Saturday I was not okay. The pain was still there, and not just muscle pain from working hard. Nerve pain shooting down my leg. The same kind of pain I have dealt with for the last 9 years.
I thought ok, it’s our off day. It’s no big deal. I’m going to be fine for ministry tomorrow. I took it pretty easy that day, lying in bed, watching movies, getting wifi that I took a taxi to instead of walking. All was good.
Cue Sunday. I woke up and the pain was still there only worse. It wasn’t something I could ignore anymore. I’m pretty self-aware when it comes to my pain levels and I knew that this wasn’t just a bad moment or day. The kind of pain I was experiencing I had only really had twice in my life. When I was 16 and I was first diagnosed with herniated discs, and in the fall of 2013 when a new disc herniated in my back.
Not really knowing what to do about it, I took one of my Percocet and tried to walk to church. I could barely make it a few hundred feet before I was shaking in pain. So we took a cab to church and home. The whole time I had no idea what to do about my back, because if this was a new injury there is absolutely no one in Transnistria that I would trust to treat me.
That night my team prayed over me, asking the Lord for healing. No such luck on that front.
Monday morning my teammates told me that I needed to stay home and rest, to see if that would help. It didn’t.
Tuesday the pain was even worse. I had barely slept the night before and I finally broke down and cried in pain. As the day progressed there were fewer and fewer comfortable ways to sit, because both laying down and standing were excruciating.
So last night as I sat awake for hours, I begged God to take away this pain. I begged Him to show up. I begged Him for wisdom. I asked Him what I was supposed to do, go home, stay here. What do you want me to learn from this I practically shouted at Him.
This morning after a 5 hour cry fest alone on my bed, my team mate asked me what I was thinking. I want to go home is all I could say. I wanted the comfort of home, of having a doctor that I trusted, to having medicine that I trusted, and being around people who its kind of their job to care for me.
As I sat in a chair on my bed pad and cried some more my team leader walked over and sat in front of me and gently asked if now would be a good time to start praying for my back, referring to our conversation from last week. I laughed at her through the tears and nodded yes.
So after breakfast I was laying in my bed when my team surrounded me and prayed healing over me. They prayed that the pain would be taken away and that I would know I wasn’t alone.
Then everyone kind of scattered for ministry, and as I laid there on my bed it started to be more comfortable. I was able to drift off to sleep for a few minutes. Just to be woken up by the door being opened by Tamara, the lady who cooks for us this month.
(She only speaks Russian, and I only know how to say hammer in Russian. Yesterday though somehow we figured out how to let her know I was in pain because of my back. She told me it was because I go outside without socks. She’s pretty great)
As she took our breakfast away, she pointed at me and I’m pretty sure she was asking what was wrong. So I pointed at my back and leg, and she spoke some Russian. I smiled at her and she smiled back and I thought the moment was over.
I was wrong. She dropped to her knees and laid a hand on my back and my leg and began to pray over me.
The two things I was practically begging God for last night he provided for me this morning. I asked to know I wasn’t alone. He gave me not only my teammates, but this sweet Transnistrian lady to let me know I am deeply cared for. I also asked for him to take this pain away. While it is still there to a degree, I can lay down now. I can sleep again, and I can go over an hour without crying.
That in my book is a win and an answered prayer. All the same though, I would like to ask you all to join me in praying for my back. That healing would continue and the pain would subside.
My mom made me an appointment with my doctor the first full week that I am home, and nothing would be cooler than walking in and him telling me that not only are there no new injuries, but all of the old injuries are gone as well.
Prayer is a powerful thing, please keep lifting me up over the next 35 days (yup there are only 35 days left on the Race).
Love you all!
Audrey
