when nothing works....and then, when it does

when nothing works....

i had a really rough week last week. first and worst of all, i got malaria. i had a 106 fever, my body ached, and my head throbbed. i would go from pouring cold water on myself (with clothes on) to shivering cold after the medicine would take effect. the fever combined with the heat outside and no breeze made for a pretty miserable state. after the malaria abated thanks to medicine, i had to contend with the most awful cold sores on my mouth that i have ever had (my body's reaction to the intense fevers). i could barely talk or eat.

other things fell apart as well. right when i came to Sudan, the visa requirements changed to $50 every month, instead of $50 every 3 months. this is a huge financial burden on the expats in the country, and some of them complained in Juba and immigration changed the requirements back to $50 for 3 months. i was very excited by this news, but apparently it had not reached Yei yet. i went to the airport and was denied a 3-month visa. they instructed me to go to the immigration office in town. i went that day and was denied the visa again. i had to concede to spending $50 for a 1-month visa and went to exchange my $100 bill at the local exchange place. i handed them the money and they denied me a good exchange rate because of a small red stamp on the bill. WHAT?!?!? i tried to maintain peace but just couldn't. i told them this was ridiculous and just walked away, having settled for the lower exchange rate. then another day that week, i walked for about an hour, in the heat, to reach an NGO that has a good internet connection so that i could email out my january-february update (still have not been able to send). it just so happens that that day, the internet was not working, for some reason, which has never happened to me before. i was about to cry.

and then, when it does...

this past sunday, jennie and i traveled to arua, uganda to do banking and get the Iris mail. we had to take public transport, which can be up to an 8-hour journey, what with getting stopped and hassled at road check points for no reason, border control stopping the vehicle for inquiry for hours, the 2 foot ditches and potholes on the road....you get the point. not to mention our vehicle was named "No hurry in Africa" (all the cars here have names stamped on the windshields). jennie and i laughed and said it was prophetic for our trip. but it took only 5.5 hours, and practically no trouble along the way. we stayed at an amazing hotel, paradise to me after living in difficult and meager conditions in one of the poorest places on earth. the hotel had american food and a swimming pool!!! all i had wanted for weeks was a burger, and they had it! the next day, we went to the bank to withdraw money and set up an account for me. a process that could have taken 4 hours (as it has in the past) took only 2, no trouble at all. we had lunch at an indian restaurant, another craving of mine. i charged my phone at a local cell phone shop, having been unable to do so for days because my charger was broken. when i didn't have small enough change to pay for the service, they let me go for free! this is unheard of around here, someone graciously giving a free service. i knew it was the Lord. then i ran into some friends unexpectedly at the hotel who had just arrived and whose driver was heading back to Yei that morning. the trip back took 3.5 hours, a miracle!

the stress of daily life is compounded here. the normal stresses that i am accustomed to in the States are exponentially magnified here. it's a whole new level of learning to walk in peace and maintain a state of resting in the Lord. i consider myself to be a pretty laid back person who's not stressed out easily. but here, i'm close to exploding every other day. there's always something going wrong, someone causing trouble, something falling apart. God is definitely going to take me deeper into the truth of entering the place of rest.

at the same time, there are those days when everything falls into place. when this happens, i feel His grace and mercy, how kind He is to me. i pray He keeps these days coming, but at the same time teaches me to walk in peace on the other (more frequent in occurrence) days.