After living, loving, and serving around God’s green earth for a long, but rewarding ten months, the moment finally arrived—month 11. World Racers discuss what month 11 will be like for a good portion of the second half of the race with what I have found—now that it actually is month 11—to be shockingly low accuracy. Things I thought I’d miss about home have had very little pull on me and things that I never missed the whole race, I just started missing this very month. Overall, these first nine days in The Philippines have amounted to a shocking exhibition of how little I know about my own self—and a forcible reminder of how much God knows about me.
Though I was revved up and ready to attack this final month, God certainly had other plans for how I would start the month, and I began feeling very sick as we flew from Phnom Penh (through China) to Manila, the capital city of The Philippines. Right before we passed through the Filipino customs line, my teammate, Brandon, told me that he really felt as if he needed to go to the hospital. At this time, I wouldn’t say I felt as if I needed to go to a hospital as well, but I was far from one hundred percent, as the ibuprofen I had borrowed from my squadmate, Hannah, was wearing off rapidly, as my body became replete with chills and cold sweat and as my head began to pound rhythmically.
After leaving the hospital at close to midnight that night (Brandon had been admitted for more testing), I collapsed into a bed at our missions home and spent the night shivering, with a trash can at my side. Finally, when I learned, come morning, that Brandon had been diagnosed with the Dengue fever, a tropical, mosquito-borne illness, I was forced to return to the hospital for testing.
At this point, though I knew full well that I needed to be in a hospital (my fever had gotten worse and I was exhibiting the same symptoms as Brandon), I could barely stomach the thought of leaving my bed and making the van ride over to the hospital. My squad leaders convinced me it was necessary, however, and actually forced me to go to the hospital.
The second we arrived, I actually got out of the van and without so much as waiting for or speaking to another human being; I walked myself straight to the ER to get checked out. To make a long story short, I ended up having a 104 degree fever and, like Brandon, Dengue. I was admitted to the hospital for five days and five nights.
So, that’s the way my Filipino month began—stuck in a hospital bed with an IV hanging out of my arm. My fever broke quickly, but it took me quite a long time to regain both my strength and my appetite. It was not what I had planned (and certainly not what I hoped for!) in the slightest, but it was, after all, what God had ordained. I would be lying if I failed to mention that I went a little—or a lot—stir crazy in that hospital bed, but in hindsight, I am beginning to see that that bed was exactly where God wanted me to be. God, the master calculator, knew better than I did that my first ten months of exertion and rest had left me with sufficient fuel in the tank to attack twenty-five days of ministry—but not thirty.
The hospital stint also helped me to get over my own self. I found, believe it or not, that ministry chugged along just fine without me! It started before I ever arrived back at the ministry home from the hospital and it will surely continue when I leave the Philippines in a few weeks. Quite simply put, it revolves around Jesus—not me—as its perfecter and sustainer (Colossians 1:17).
This idea—that ministry doesn’t revolve around me—has proved to be a huge relief. I am a co-worker with Christ—not the foreman. Yes, I have responsibility as both a leader and a man, to play a role in shaping the dynamic of ministry. If I am absent, however, things won’t fall apart—precisely because the core of good ministries like this one is Christ, not me.
I have been blessed, though, in these last few days, to finally begin ministry. This month, we are working with K.I.M. (Kids International Ministries), an organization that serves orphans and street children in Manila. In the end, however, God is still the potter and I am still the clay (Romans 9:19-21). Sick clay or healthy clay, God will use me as a vessel to bring glory to his name in the ways he best sees fit.
