Beginnings of week 2

Wednesday June 28, 2017

Sorry it’s been awhile since I have really written anything. Life has kind of caught me off guard and I feel like I’ve just been soaking up this new place I call home.

I will say though that the last two days have been a little rough. I felt homesick for the first time since being here earlier this week. Probably because I was sick and let’s be honest… no one likes getting sick away from home.

I woke up Tuesday morning with a runny nose and a little bit of a sore throat but by the time noon rolled around I was wrestling with a whole new kind of monster. I decided to take a nap. Hoping that the added rest would whip me back into shape. Two and a half hours later and I was sick as a dog. I laid in bed and I couldn’t move, my body felt broken. My head felt like it was going to explode and I knew I had a fever because I was shaking and cold even though my body was warm to the touch. My roommate, Emily came in to see if I was up for the trip into town to go to the immigration office for a special pass we have to get in order to work here and I looked at her and said, there is no way I am getting out of this bed.

I laid there and in the back of my mind I kept telling myself, “you are ok, it’s just a cold. This is totally normal, you are just acclimating to the new germs here”.  I woke back up again at around 5pm and I wanted to cry. My body felt the all too familiar feeling of what it is like to shut down. The feeling I experienced 3 years ago the last time I was here and the months that followed my return home from this country after my first trip. Tears started to pour out of my eyes. “Why God, why?” These were the only words I knew how to muster. Then like a wave it hit me. I am indeed in Uganda again. The place I wanted to return to after 3 years of trying to kick down doors. The place where after being so sick the first time I told people I would gladly return again even if it meant being uncomfortable.

So, that’s where I was, uncomfortable. I had been holding on to the fact that I was here but all my walls were up because I was afraid to truly experience it. I was afraid that like the last time the rug would be pulled out from underneath me and I would fall on my broken knees again and not be able to get back up this time. I cried for people back home I missed because I hadn’t yet. I had not yet let go of home. I had not yet fully allowed myself to submerge into this new life, I kept waiting to wake up from this dream.

It may sound odd but when I laid sick in bed it was like a part of me was dying in order to be free for the life I will have here. I’ve often felt God move in mysterious and sometimes weird ways but one of those ways is during my moments of being sickness. When I get sick, I get really sick and it brings me to my knees in a place of surrender. I laid in bed with my mosquito bites and my broken body aching with a fever and I thought “That’s it, I’m not even here for 2 weeks and I have malaria.” Yet, I didn’t want to be the person who overreacts so I waited it out.  “Lord, help me. Show me, move me, break me”. So, He did. My fever broke and yet another wave overwhelmed me. I began to sweat and I began to cry. My body still too weak to hardly anything I laid there rejoicing because my fever broke and that meant I was now on the mend.

I can’t explain what it is like to get sick in a place that is not your home. It is one of the most terrifying things I think I have ever experienced. You don’t know if it is just going to be a cold or flu or if it is the beginning of something bad. When you are living in a country where it is fairly easy to get sick with something that turns bad fast you really have to know your body and whether or not you need to go to the doctor to get tested. I was close this time but I was determined to not make a habit out of this whole “Am I going to die in Africa” thing. I was completely and utterly miserable but I also knew that maybe this was a sign that I needed to slow down and get some things off my chest. So, I did.

I am feeling much better now, all that remains of me being sick is a runny nose. For those of you who know me well I HATE the sound of people blowing noses. I don’t know why but it grosses me out. But yet again another thing that has gone out the window here because I’ve been having to blow my nose every 15 to 20 minutes. I like to think that our God has a funny sense of humor. So many days I sit in my bed at the end of the day and I laugh or smile I think, “ha, if I had just done this the easy way I wouldn’t have had to go through that”. I guess that’s what happens when you are as stubborn as I am though.