the luck of the irish..
I’m not one to believe in luck but if I did before I went to Ireland, I definitely wouldnt have after my first week. Being Irish and all (hints:last name-McGuire) I was super pumped about going to Ireland! When I signed up for the race I had no idea we would ever get to go to a country that appeared to be so well off. But me in Ireland didnt start off well. Because of misquitos in the Dominican Republic my feet and legs were covered in open bugbites and after the first night in Ireland I woke up with swollen feet that I could barely walk on. We were in Dublin for the first week for the awakening conference that started that morning and instead of attending it I had to find a doctor. The first doctor i went to just told me to soak my feet and gave me some medicine and told me it was just impetntigo. She seemed very nonchalant about it so i didnt worry but the next night I got a lot worse…some of that I’m starting to see now was spiritual. As I was laying alone in my tent, my tempeture started rising and my body just seemed to be fighting a battle it couldn’t win. I had chills and had become too weak to even walk to the bathroom by myself and satan took the chance to attack me. It wasn’t long until satan got me to believe I was abandoned and uncared for by my team who was at the conference sessions and I lost all security. I thought there is no way I continue to travel around the world with people that don’t care about me- its just unsafe and stupid. Thoughts of going home were being stirred by satan with a big spoon of doubt.
It wasn’t five minutes after I had started planning to leave the race when Kendra and my teammate Stacey entered my tent. When they saw my condition they knew that I had gotten a lot worse since they had seen me last, which was a couple of hours before. So they insisted we go to the hospital. I didn’t object. Sometime between leaving the campground and the 7 hours it took me to get into an actual room at the hospital Kendra told me why she had come back to check on me. She told me that while she was worshipping at the awakening conference (which was down the street from where we were all camping) she was praying a lot for herself until God put it on her heart that she should be praying for someone other than herself. Because Stacey Compton, one of our team city lights girls, was beside her she thought it’d be prefect to prayfor her- so she did. While she was praying for her something still didnt feel right and when she looked up she saw the back of a girl that reminded her of me and it hit her. God was telling her she needed to be praying with me. WOW.
I know GOD does these things all the time but it is so awesome to see that the same moments satan was pursuading me to leave the race, GOD was sending Kendra to speak truth into the situation with her prayers and actions of love. GOD is awesome!
So, Kendra and Stacey and I had a funny time at the hospital. The fist hour or so all I could do was cry and try not to hurt but after they called me back and did my check ups they gave me a shot for the pain and I was able to relax and enjoy the time with my 2 teammates. After 7 hours in the waiting room I got in and they put me on 2 dips (i.v.s if you are in america) of anitbiotics and after a long night we arrived back at the campground at about 6 or 7 am. It was actually very funny that I ended back up at the campground because in my state of frustration, pain, and being medicated I was soo serious about telling Stacey and Kendra there was no possible way I was going back to a freezing cold and wet tent in my condition. I was soo stubborn I said that I was getting myself a hotel room with my personal money and I didn’t care what anyone said about it. I ‘was NOT getting back in a tent!!’ But of course- they talked me into waiting until noon to check in/ when I was actually sain, and by then I was thinking again and I was perfectly content in my tent:)
The next day consisted of sleeping and going to get my perscriptions filled- which meant I missed another day of the conference. I hated that but I couldnt even walk down the street to get there so it was good I didn’t. Then the day after that I was finally able to attend some of the conference and hang out with my friends. I had to take a taxi there because i still couldnt walk well but it was good for me to get out of my tent. During our break between sessions I went with Shannon and some other friends to go eat lunch in Dublin and to go get my foot looked at again by a pharmisist because though I felt good my foot was getting bigger and bigger. On the way to lunch we stopped at a pharmacy and they checked it out. They refered me to a doctor and said I should go right away. My thoughts: “Oh no. Here we go again.”
So we grabbed a fast lunch and I headed to a doctors office. As soon as a took my boots off to show the doctor he freaked out and told me my feet looked nasty- which was really not comforting to me. He told me that it could be the type of superbug infection that didnt respond to antibiotics and referd me to the hospital and told me to go right away. I obviously wasn’t happy. We went back to the hospital hoping that because it was before 6pm when we got there and because we were refered we would most definitely have to wait as long as before. wrong. once again it took 7 hours but this time it went faster because I was joined by about 10-15 other world racers because a couple more people on my squad had to go to the hospital that night for things like kidney stones, stomach issues that couldve been malaria, ect.
When I finally was called back they told me Kendra couldn’t go back with me. I flipped out. She had been the one to hold my hand through it all and the hospital was forcing me to go at it alone. (sidenote: I have really small viens so it is very hard/painful for me to get ivs because most people have to dig in my arm which makes it a big issue for me) When they took me back all I could do was pray and cry. I had never been alone in this situation and it freaked me out that I had to do it then. I feared that I would have to check into a room and stay all alone. Then it hit me. ‘HELLLO, RACHEL! you are not alone at all. God is right here with me always. HE is more real than any of my wonderful friends or family. HE is the ultimate comforter.” As I focused on that and constantly prayed, they gave me my iv. It wasn’t bad. praise God!
Right after the iv, Kendra came back for me:) yay for her being such an awesome friend she wouldnt take no for an answer! woohoo! Then I was placed in the hospital over night and my sweet sweet nurse snuck kendra in to stay with me. After I got comfortable I told her she could leave and get some sleep. I had a peace that I wasn’t alone. That night a slept wonderfully and the next day about 6pm I was able to check out and go back to the confrence/campground.
After my foot started healing, all I wanted to do was go out and enjoy Ireland since I felt I had missed so much. At that point I didn’t know where I would be for the rest of the month so I wanted to really soak up Dublin. In that I decided to go out with my teammates and we were all going to get piercings with our personal money. It ended up that just kendra and I got piercings. Hers was the monroe and my mine is below my lip. It was a fun little thing that I would’ve never done at home but I felt like I had been through so much and God had given me so much strength through my hospital visits I just wanted to do something fun with that strength of facing fears.
**
After the awakening conference, my team city lights and team green light took a two hour bus ride to the other side of Ireland to a city called Galway. That was where our ministry would be taking place for the month of September and we would be working together with a church called Discovery Church. When we arrived we caught another bus to our camp ground and set up our tents and prayed for good weather:)
