The last couple days have been pretty rough for our team… Three of us were down for the count with a stomach virus.
This morning I woke up to a terrible pain in my tummy and the need to run to the bathroom. I rid my body of all the chapatti I had for dinner last night and tried not to throw up as I did it.
Weaving my way through the limbs of my sleeping teammates I found my mat on the floor and laid down again to try to let my tummy settled.
As I began to doze off there was a great pounding on the door: it woke me with a start and I realized as those who have been sleeping do after they wake that the pounding had been happening for quite some time.
Being the only person awake I covered my incredibly immodest (shorts and a T-shirt) pajamas with my blanket and picked my way across the room once more.
Outside stood the mentally challenged man who lives in the church with us. The bag of belongings in his hand made it clear he was going somewhere and soon. The broken English he spoke tied together with my groggy brain and painful stomach made it difficult work understanding one another but after a time I realized he was on his way to the doctor and hoped I would pray for him before he went. Trying to not show my scandalous knees I leaned farther out the door to speak words over him and with him to God in regards to his doctor visit. As I said amen he said, “thank you, sister” walking off perfectly assured that God would provide.
Ironic is it not? My stomach turns within me and my body rejects anything I try to put in it and God places a lonely little strange man in my path to pray for. I am forced to turn my eyes away from my own affliction and back onto the things of Him.
Ironic? I suppose that is a word you could call God…
Or perhaps strategic is better.
Insanity intelligent…
India has been a month of incredible discomfort. Between the ants and mosquitos we all appear to have some dreadful form of chicken pocks. Sleeping on the floor has caused huge knots to form in our backs to the point where we walk more like seventy year old men then young women. Awkward language shackles bind our tongues in the homes of the families we spend our days with. Asking for less rice sounds like asking for more rice when you speak English and everyone else in the room speaks English only small small… And by small small I mean about as much English as I speak German… In the end we are given a family sized helping of all the rice and curry one can imagine leaving us bloated and feeling like never ever eating a bite of food again… Unless of course it’s cheesecake… I’m always up for cheesecake. Through all of this it is difficult to not get discouraged. What, I ask you, is that point of being in a country where the only words you can speak must be spoken through a touch, or a helping hand, or a small gift… Or a prayer before the sun rises…
I hold my breath and pray for this all to be over… For India to pass me by so that I don’t have to think about the itchiness of my body, the endless dirt on my feet, the cramping in my tummy, or my family all together around an American Thanksgiving feast in a few days…
And God sends me a man on his way to the doctor.
Pray for him Katie…
Be my hands and feet…
I close my eyes and speak the words and as I do the shattered pieces of my broken reality come together into a gorgeous stain glass window. I am servant and a daughter. I serve because I want to share his goodness with those around the world who sleep on the floor and slap at the bugs. Even if that means sleeping on the floor and slapping at the bugs…
All for now through the eyes of a storyteller…
