Recently I’ve been struck by how much we
have to trust strangers, each other, and ultimately, God to make it through
life. Seeing as I’m not the most trusting person on the planet, the lessons
I’ve learned this week about trust have rocked and perhaps revolutionized some
of my perspectives of God in life.
Tuesday was one of those days that would
have been hilarious to bottle up and give to someone who isn’t on the world
race. I mean the day started off with Amber and me running to the Black Sea and
laughing about 100 old men in Speedos and was then coupled with me frying
chicken for 23 people. After that endeavor, Andrew and I end up having to go to
a main city because one on our squad, Christina, was sick in the hospital. Of
course this involves three buses and as usual, an abundance of trudging and
waiting. On the way there, Stefan (Christina’s husband) called us and said that
visiting hours were over. We decide to keep going and are offered to stay with
our contact’s brother. We hear there is some rain in the city, but have no idea
that there was a ridiculous flash flood there. We pull in and are amazed at the
3 foot deep river flowing down the main road. Random Brother’s house has
flooded, so we hear he can’t pick us up yet. We wander around. Play cards. Talk
to people. Eat some food. Pray over a drunken man who literally falls in front
of us. Finally 2 or 3 hours later, we get a call that we will be picked up by
someone with big ears.
Forty minutes later, a guy whose ears
aren’t all that big comes to us and motions us to follow him. We get on yet
another bus and realize that a conversation in English was going to be impossible.
We trust the guy and end up at a clean house where we were given dinner (not
sure what it was, but it was sustenance). I watched Andrew have the most
entertaining charades conversation with this animated man and was delighted to find
one of those showers that have lights, a radio, and water shooting from all
over the place. I tried to wash the flood off my feet and failed, ended up
spraying my clothes and face, and then had to come to tea soaking wet. All the
while we are talking with Stefan and Christina and are being told different
things. She has Malaria. Her appendix needs to come out. Maybe it’s her
kidneys. Maybe she needs to be flown back to Switzerland. Finally, it is
settled that her appendix needs to be taken out. We go to bed trusting the Lord to take care
of them.
We wake up in the morning and head over
the hospital. I will spare all the mothers of people on our squad who read my
blog from the gory details because I don’t want to cause alarm, but if you want
a mental picture of the place, think of a cross between the Cambodian
concentration camp/genocide museum mixed with videos we saw of the hospital
Nancy Kerrigan was treated at when she was attacked my Tanya Harding’s hit man.
I seriously shed tears when I heard/saw what they had been through. English
isn’t Stefan and Christina’s first language, or even second language at that,
and there was hardly anyone in the hospital that could speak any English to
help. Stef couldn’t read any of the papers in Russian that they were signing to
permit surgery and anesthesia on Christina. No one explained anything that was
going on. The surgery was fairly crude and the verdict is still out whether or
not she really had her appendix taken out or if it was another organ to be sold
on the black market. Okay that’s enough of the details, but I could go on and
on about the blast from the past experience at the hospital. It was rough, but
we just kept being reminded of how spoiled we have become in the U.S. (and
Switzerland). After getting over the
initial craziness, Stefan remarked how he was thankful for the dirty,
blood-stained sheets because at least they had something to sleep on.
Thankfully she came out of surgery well and is doing better now. She is still
in the hospital for treatment of the Malaria, but she survived and we’re
obviously more than thankful. God took care of her and they just had to trust
Him to get them the right treatment because everything was out of their
control.
We stayed with them for the day and then
trekked home. On the way home, we had to buy tickets, but we had no idea how we
would do that because of the language barrier. Three young guys came up to us
and in very basic English asked where we were from. We lit up with hope and we
started conversing with them. We then asked one in a uniform to help us buy our
tickets. It was quite the ordeal and the boys almost missed their train to help
us-but while we were standing in line waiting, Andrew inquired about the pins
they were wearing. Come to find out, they were part of the Communist Youth
Group of the Ukraine and were out with their recruits. As we handed them our money,
we laughed at how the most helpful and friendly people we’d met all day were
Communists-the epitome of untrustworthy people to Americans.
And here is where we come to my point. I
have been learning over and over that we just have to trust. We must trust that
God is going to put us in the path of people we can trust. Whether they’re
communists, random men with big ears, or gruff Russian speaking doctors that we
have to follow, we’re ultimately entrusting our lives to God. Every day is in His
hands. Especially on the race I’ve realized that we’ve been entrusted with
spreading the Word, no matter what danger that puts us in- and in turn I am
convinced that God will guard what I have entrusted to Him. Yah, we need to
have common sense, but there are times that you just have to believe that God
is in control and going before us in every situation. Because God can be
trusted, Andrew and I got a good night of sleep, a good dinner, and an amazing
shower, Christina is doing better and only had to pay the doctor with whisky
for the surgery, and the good Samaritan Communists got us our tickets to get to
Romania. With our sanity in mind, I wouldn’t always recommend living like this,
but it is wonderful to know that a sovereign God is watching and working out
all the details.
2 Timothy 1:12
“For this reason
I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have
believed and
I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to
Him until that day.”
