I finally have experienced really getting sick in Thailand! Are you all as excited as I am? Well, I mean I had gotten sick, but it was just a cold and cough type of sickness, nothing where you could get really skinny like I was hoping for. ( not hoping exactly… but if you are planning to get sick, it is better to get the kind that makes you skinny too, right?) Anyway, on Sunday I was trying hard to talk to Andrew, but all I really wanted to do was throw up. This was not exactly the kind of thing that Andrew was anxious to listen in on, so I gave the phone to Travis and Jason and they talked instead while I busily turned greener by the moment. I spent that night racing weakly back and forth to the outhouse, watching the grass for snakes and scorpions as I ran. ( I don’t know what a scorpion looks like, but I watch for them anyway)

The next day, as I was laying on the bed totally wasted and sick, the boys came in and cheerfully told me that they were going to tear the roof off of the house and that they needed me to vacate the room! So, I pleaded with them to at least set up the hammock out under the trees for me so that I would not have to lay on the hard ground while I valiantly tried to keep down my latest sip of water. As I then lay there in the hammock, watching them tear apart the house, I thought that swinging in a hammock under the tropical sun was not all that it was cracked up to be! All day long my temperature continued to rise until it reached 105. Jason then gave me some paracetamol so that he could get back to work and not have to worry about me so much.

The next day, I felt a little better, and my temperature was only 102,  so Travis and I decided to come to town so that I could answer my emails. ( I get email on my phone now, but I can not answer them very easily yet) So, we did our business in town, and on the way home on the motor bike, Travis yelled back over his shoulder that he thought that it looked like it was going to rain. I told him that it was probably just smoke since they are burning the jungle. It didn’t take long for my “smoke” to get me wet to the skin! I felt better, since the wind from the motor bike combined with the rain made me feel much cooler! But, that lasted only a few minutes before it started to feel rather cold! ( as a side note, when it rains here, and you drive through a puddle, the water that splashes up is really hot!) It doesn’t take us long to get home fortunately, but there we were met by a roofless house! We ended up taking refuge in the training center. But, I had no dry clothing to change into and so the next day my temperature went back up to 104 and I was totally miserable!

The nice thing about being sick is the love and faith shown by those around us. Each day, the caretaker and his wife come over for worship, and they prayed hard and LONG each night for the Lord to heal me. Today I feel really good! And, I was even able to eat a little breakfast! And to make matters even better, the roof of the house is on again! I no longer have to worry about those rain storms.

It certainly was not my ideal situation for getting sick in, but it is times like yesterday that you really feel the power and loving care of God. I was laying in my hammock, sweating profusely because of the fever and the really hot day, and I was watching the boys put the roof on the house while talking with the Lord. I told him that I was awfully hot, and it would be so nice to be able to cool off a little. About then, I heard thunder in the distance, the wind came up and it was a cooler wind! I could see thunder heads all around us, but it never did rain! It was much cooler, and the wind felt so good, but the Lord kept the rain back so that they could finish the roof. That is just how God is. He cares so much about each one of us.