Monday, June 11, 2007
The last few days have been interesting and adventure packed. Scott celebrated his 32nd birthday on Saturday, and we prepared to go out with a bang.
That morning we woke up to a scrambled egg breakfast (prepared by Chad), and so I piled Scott’s plate high. I hadn’t actually said Happy Birthday to him yet, so in the middle of the groggy crew in the kitchen of the AIM house, I gave him a great big hug, and said happy birthday. Chad overheard, and so the rest of the kitcheners heard, by default. That was the beginning of the day.
The day before was a day of silence, so Scott and I spent most of the day reading, praying, and journalling (I spent a bunch of time just drawing… letting my creative juices flow). I had originally scheduled a meeting with Andrew, but where I wasn’t supposed to talk, we rescheduled for the 9th. So, I joined a meeting about communication (just to see what would be communicated to our new June racers during training this week) until Andrew showed up at the house.
Scott and I like to sit and listen to Andrew. He’s got years of wisdom and experience that give him a natural authority into our lives. Scott and I shared some of our concerns (that actually have to do with communication for the most part), and asked for some impartation on how to deal with tough stuff, tough people, how do I change me so that I don’t try to change others. How do I gain authority in someone else’s life? How do I keep giving when I will get walked all over? I guess that’s one of the gifts we’ve been given as followers of Christ. We’ve been given the opportunity to give our lives away every single day.
So, after I got told to “man up” by Andrew (it’s good, really, just hard), team Nessa went out to lunch at Rustic Kitchen, about a 1/2 mile away. We ate a superb lunch, although my hamburger looked more like a sloppy joe. Scott had some kind of escargot filet, which he downed fairly quickly. Seth and Andrew (along with wives ended up eating at the same restaurant), and when we finished, the men ended up spending some guy time together. The rest of Nessa walked back to AIM, and while Scott was away, with the help of Tim Drew, we found out that there was availability at the Global Village guest house for the night.
Right about the time we found out that we could stay there, Scott arrived back at AIM. So we quickly hopped into the car and drove down the road to the Village, and set a reservation for the night. We drove back to the AIM house, got our stuff together, and Tim drove us back to Global Village. The first thing I did was draw a bath (no shower curtain, so I took advantage of the tub). Jake and Lynette met us in the downstairs restaurant at 5:30 and we had a great birthday dinner.
It was about 6:15pm when my stomach started to get a rigid feeling. I was eating a great tuna salad and truly wanted to finish it, but it was all I could do to remain in the conversation. After that we had an orientation meeting for the June racers who had just arrived at AIM in Swazi at around 3 pm. They looked a bit ragged, but excited to be there. Scott, Jake, Lynette, and I left the meeting while a game of Family Feud was in full swing. We had birthday dessert at the restaurant, a room away. I downed some ice cream (which felt realy good going down), and then we said good night.
At around 4:30 am I woke with a start, ran to the bathroom, and essentially downloaded every meal from that day in the form of liquid. I have no clue what prompted such a reaction from my body, but the rest of the night was spent at the toilet. I even had to miss the morning training meeting because I needed the bathroom once about every 10 to 15 minutes. I decided to down a zithro and make the journey back to AIM at about 11, when we had to check out.
The bathroom trips have slowed to a halt, due to the meds I’m on, but I can’t eat anything but toast and water. I’m hoping to get back to normal in a day or two. And I’m still learning what it means to wear a garmet of praise. It’s a decision, and it’s a tough one to make when you feel like crud. God’s in the crud, right?!
