India, oh India!

Coming to India I assumed my stomach would get a bit sick before I left. It’s almost impossible to get around that. My bland, American body meeting spicy Indian food is certainly always a collision my insides do not know how to handle. But, as I am lying here on a floor mat in our living room while the rest of the team is out doing ministry, I am fighting of a nasty respitory track infection and gastronitis. No, no, this isn’t just your normal cold I get quite often. It’s an Indian cold; a different strand my body has never encountered. Last night around midnight is when I decided this was no ordinary illness. I was awoken by sharp pains in my stomach, a high fever, and a stuffed nose. Feeling that, oh so familiar, pain in my lower stomach I knew it was game time. So I acted as a contortionist out of my mosquito net and bee-lined for our bedroom door. It was locked. Locked from the outside.
“What? Is this really happening?” I tried the door once again. Locked. I was stranded in my own misery. I began to get anxious as the pain intensified. I banged on the door, I pounded on the thick cement walls, and I vigorously shook the door. No one was coming to my rescue. Heck, the three girls in my room hadn’t budged a bit in my frenzy. The sweat started to pour.
“What am I going to do? What am I going to do?!” I had no other options. I was stuck. I decided to get back up and woke up my friend Berkeley saying,
“Berkeley! We are locked inside this room and I need to get out! Please help me!” I think she heard the desperation in my voice because she flew straight up in her bed. I went to the door to show her our problem and with one hard shake of the door, it came unlocked. Just like that. I was rescued! Finally! Oh it was a glorious feeling in a time when I felt so ill.
I didn’t sleep much that night. The fever was keeping me from falling asleep. In the morning I declared to my Indian friend, Joseph, that it was time to go to the doctor.
The doctor was not nearly as eventful as my previous escape from my bedroom dungeon. It took about 30 minutes, 200 rupees ($4 US dollars) and a lot of translation, and I was done. The doctor didn’t even ask my name until the end of the exam. But all is well. A lady who lives across from us is a nurse and she accompanied me. She gave me the low-down on the prescriptions I have and what to do to get over this fast. She cringed when she found out we were taking cold showers. Hey now, I love the cold showers in this hot climate. Also she urged me to drink hot water, which she so lovingly boiled and is currently sitting next to me. So, I have, or should I say, I am experiencing something new here in India, and unlike everything else, I do not like this. I’m ready to get better.

I’m going to try to upload some pictures to my blog of the tribes we visited this week. We prayer walked, did a drama, told some testimonies and sang songs with the people. We then were able to pray for the tribal people. In one tribe I think we were able to pay for almost the entire tribe! Yay God! If you don’t see any pictures, its because the internet connection. I will try again soon. Peace!