Week 3 Recap

This week was a little tougher in the nursery. There is one baby in particular, Ann, whom everyone seems to gravitate to. She knows this too. For 2 days straight she just whined the entire time I was in there. My patience was wearing thin. You see, people come sweeping into the nursery, pick her up, tell her how much they love her, and then put her back down. She doesn’t like being put back down. And these people don’t give a second look at the other babies. It breaks my heart for not only these other babies who seem to get overlooked by those not working in the nursery as well as for Ann because she’s getting used to being treated differently.

Well, this week the power seemed to have gone off quite a bit. It’s nothing like Guam’s power outages – normally it’s off for only a few hours, except for Sunday it turned off in the middle of my shower. Praise Jesus the water still worked! (While typing this it just turned off and then turned back on really quickly!) We also have a gas stove, so cooking is still an option! I’m paranoid about opening the fridge though because of living on Guam. I don’t want the food to go bad, but the power is never off that long, thankfully!

I’m learning that if I don’t start typing this recap during the week, it all kind of becomes a blur. Friday morning was probably the worst time of my week though. I woke up around 1:30 feeling really sore and really cold. I tried to warm myself up, but it wasn’t working. I grabbed my towel from the ladder (we sleep over a little desk area) and covered as much as I could. I didn’t want to get down from my loft. I finally went to the bathroom hoping that would help. That didn’t work, so I went and got a really heavy blanket that we have here in the volunteers’ quarters. I kept feeling my hands and realizing that they weren’t actually cold. My mind started wandering – was I dying? Did I have malaria? Another girl threw up earlier in the week, was I going to? I finally got down and posted on Facebook that I needed prayer and that I probably had a fever. Instead of getting up and down from my bed, I decided to camp out on the couch in the common area.

Within a few hours my fever had broken. During this time I was wide awake, so I just browsed Facebook – and couldn’t believe the number of people who posted they were praying for me. This whole time I was praying that God would give me the grace to get through this. Of course I wanted it gone, but am realizing that the things we go through are opportunities for God to walk alongside of me through it and for me to learn to trust fully in Him.

I truly believed when I posted on Facebook that God was going to work through me via those that were praying for me! Maybe it was the fact that it was 3:30 am, but I truly believed He was going to answer the prayers of the faithful! And my God didn’t let me down, He answered. It wasn’t right away, but for, probably, the first time I actually felt the prayers of my friends and family. I’m thankful to have gone through this trial.

James 1:2-4 states “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” I am learning to count my trials as joy…even though I do not want to choose that. I want to be completely consumed by Christ!

Went to an aquarium last week, Christopher was my buddy for the time.