Our first week in Cambodia was spent visiting AIDS patients, teaching and playing with orphans, hanging out at the University of the Nations youth center, and eventually teaching English at the center. It was a great week, and I was more than excited to get going on our own the next week. Until…
The sore throat I had thought to have simply been my allergies was followed by a tragic series of events. Next, the fever set in with a combination of the chills then fever again and again. Alongside the fever every ache and pain you can imagine invaded my body. Then my body began to reject everything and anything inside. That is my discrete way to say I had diarrhea and continued to vomit for 3 days. Needless to say, I have not been that miserable in a long long time…
I learned a few worthwhile things while being trapped in my prison, commonly known as a bedroom. The men who work at the steel shop next door have a variety of different hammering patterns. Hammer #1 goes “dink….dink………………dink….dink.” Hammer #2 goes “dink..dink..dink..dink..dink……………dink..dink..dink..dink..dink.” Personally, I think hammer #2 deserves a raise for the effort he is putting in over hammer #1. In the background further from my window I hear a much more consistent hammer #3, but surely that hammer has already gotten a raise.
In addition to the hammering, each of my teammates has a distinct manner in which they knock on the door. If the door opens immediately, it is Brooke, mainly because it is her room too. When I hear one knock and see the door open, I know it is Beth’s sympathetic face I will see. Two knocks, a pause for my voice, and another knock means Gabrielle will enter with the “I feel really bad for you” face once she hears me say “Come in.” Two short knocks followed by “Jessie Baby” means only Gina is there. Two knocks, a pause, then two more knocks, followed by “Jessie!?!?!” is a clear sign that my brother, Casey, is at the door. Now once each of these people enter we begin with an update on my latest “movements” followed by her/him telling me about life on the outside. I am grateful for each of them!!!
On a more serious note…I am grateful to the Lord for
healing me. Pretty sure it was not the Cambodian doctor that sold shampoo in the front of his office because I could not even keep down the medicine he gave me. After not being able to keep water down for 2 days I called our nurse squadmate, Katey. She sent Gina on a wild goose chase for Gatorade. A YWAMer ended up having Adams Ale Sport and powdered Gatorade. A sip of this Australian Electrolyte Drink every 20 minutes managed to pull me out of my 3 day pattern. Currently, I still feel a little rough and I am only drinking Gatorade type beverages, the thought of food only makes things worse. I must get better for Brooke’s Birthday Extravaganza tonight…meaning we go out for Mexican food where I sip on my Gatorade. : (
Pray that whatever is attacking my body stays far far away. Pray I can continue to eat new things every day because I would like to have energy to do everything in our week and a half left in Battambang. I give thanks to the Lord for Katey’s Gatorade knowledge, getting me out of misery, the miracle that I call healing!
Thanks friends for your prayers…they worked!
