Reece on Mission in Sickness and in Health

I could write pages and pages about how God worked and moved on this trip to Uganda.  I hope to tell some of the amazing highlights very soon, but for some reason the thing that keeps coming to my mind to share first, is the ugly part.  These kinds of stories are usually held pretty private because the good always outweighs the bad and I don’t want to be discouraging but I want people to be encouraged.  But if you have been around me or my blog at all I usually tell all, the good the bad and the ugly……so I will start with the ugly and then flood this blog with the many uplifting stories.

I believe when we share the sick and suffering parts of our lives it makes the beautiful more beautiful, the rainbows more vivid, the victories more celebrated the calm more peaceful, the joy more joy-filled.

Pain and suffering has a way of bringing out the truth of what is really in a person.

On the very first long flight we had on our journey, the 9 1/2 hour flight, Reece and I got sick, sick, sick.

Many puke bags sick.

We had apparently gotten the bug from the little girls after all, and didn’t realize it until we were airborne.

It was a humbling, scary, and miserable experience.

We prayed our hearts out and puked our guts out that whole trip.

At one point I told Reece to be so discreet and to puke so quietly as to not disturb the other passengers, I told him if they knew how sick he was, they may kick him off the flight….he was like, “IN THE AIR?!?!”

Not my best mom moment, but I felt so bad about bringing sickness on a flight, I was trying to keep a low profile and germs and drama to ourselves.

By the time we got to Amsterdam, we were already beginning to feel better, which simply means we felt like we were going to live and we could continue on.
  We hooked up with Teresa and Arianna and continued onto our final destination!

 UGANDA!

We felt good for a few days and then it hit Reece again.  He got puking sick one morning and by afternoon he had already bounced back again.  That same night I had a relapse as well, so as I was walking around my room trying to figure out what to do to settle the stomach ache, I noticed Reece’s mosquito net was not down properly on one side.  I walked to that side of the bed and stepped right on my double bladed razor. 

Wellllllllll, that’s one way of taking care of stomach pain, by sending all blood and pain sensors to my foot.

Let me just explain the situation…..when you are in Uganda your feet are never clean.  They have the most beautiful red dirt stain to them because their soil is so rich and red.  It’s not the thing you want rubbed into an open would all day for the next 10 days.  

God just took total care of me despite my clumsy negligent self, it healed up just fine. 

The final blow was on Redeemer House moving day, one of our last days in Uganda, Reece woke up vomiting repeatedly non-stop for 2 hours.  After the first hour I got freaked out, I sent out prayer requests and woke up everyone I knew in the hotel and beyond.  I was thinking he needed to go to a clinic.

 HE.COULD.NOT.QUIT.PUKING.

Teresa and Simon physically ran to another guesthouse where xHope team was staying and got some meds they had for us to try.  By the 3^rd dose he had stopped puking and began to rest.

We were relieved and bummed all at the same time.  Relieved he was getting better but bummed we were going to miss moving day.  He was so weak.

Here’s how God works though, we had to stay back from the move that day, so Reece could recover, but the nicest young man who was working at the hotel we were staying at, was so genuinely concerned and kind to Reece.

Him and Reece just hit it off and by the end of the day when Reece was feeling better, he came to our room to freshen it up and we got to visit with him for quite awhile.

The next morning he brought a few gifts to Reece that he had made that night, and we prayed for him and he prayed for Reece.  It was so sweet and unexpected.

Reece decided he wanted to give Jordan something before we left so he decided to give him his Bible.
Reece has a huge study Bible, that I think weighs more than him, and this is the Bible he brought with him.  He needed the biggest Jesus book with him on mission.  

His Bible had his name on the front but the inside pages had never been filled out, so Reece filled them all out to present to Jordan.

 

Reece bounced back 100% once again, and God even used him in his sick bed to connect with people.

There’s no other explanation than God just had His hand on us every day and even when things got rough they were used for our good and for His glory.

There is plenty more to share that doesn’t revolve around sickness and suffering, but so many times we gloss over it, and it is a part of life that we all have, and if we share in the rough spots together we can celebrate the victories with more zeal.

We remember from where we came!

Psalm 41:1-3

Blessed is the one who considers the poor!  In the day of trouble the Lord delivers him; the Lord protects him and keeps him alive; he is called blessed in the land; you do not give him up to the will of his enemies.  The Lord sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness you restore him to full health.