we got to thailand on april 25 and things have been anything but normal...or easy...since then. sometimes itineraries mean absolutely nothing. this is one of those times...
we were meant to have only about a day and a half in bangkok, arriving here on the 25th and flying down to hat yai (southern thailand) on the 27th of april. as you can see from my fourth word in, those plans have changed. lets take a little trip to revisit this past week of my life. one of the more physically challenging, emotionally painful, educational, thought provoking, and just plain insane weeks of my life. one of those weeks that, in retrospect, i am so grateful for - but i never want to revisit.
there is a beautiful, intelligent, 23 year old american on my team named laura. she comes from the east coast, graduated college last spring and has walked closely in an unwavering relationship with God her entire life. she is absolutely amazing. there is one fact about laura that i never thought twice about. i suppose i always knew this about her, but it was never something i analyzed. it didn´t really phase me. little did i know that this one tiny fact about laura would change the course of my outreach trip and lead to an experience that i will honestly, honestly never forget.
laura wears contact lenses.
doesn´t seem like such a big deal, right? tell her that while she is laying on a bed in a bangkok hospital with metal rods holding her eye open as a thai doctor scrapes layers of bacteria off of her eyeball with, literally, a knife as i am being escorted out to the waiting room because it was "too much" for me.
i apologize if that was a bit too graphic...but, seriously....THAT REALLY HAPPENED.
the day before we left the orphanage in cambodia and flew to bangkok, laura´s eyes really began bothering her. i had put some eye drops in them a few days prior, thinking they were just dried out from all of the dust and unclean air. when it came time for us to fly to thailand, laura had been up all night because she couldn´t close her eye, and now she couldn´t open it. by the time we landed in bangkok, she felt light-headed, her eye was swollen and she felt like she had knives in it every time she blinked. in short, she needed a doctor. immediately.
endre took her to a nearby clinic and they gave her some eye drops. problem solved!!!
or, so we thought.
at 6am the next day, laura woke me up wanting to go to the emergency room. she had a white, cloudy circle on her eye and was in excruciating pain every time she blinked. the second i saw her, i knew we needed to go: the black of her pupil in her left eye was no longer visible because it was completely covered with this white cloud. creepy looking, yes, and it got me out of bed immediately. what i thought would be a quick trip to get some stronger medicine - in and out in time to go sightseeing with the group for the day - turned out to be an eight hour day at the hospital, followed by five subsequent visits after that.
she was diagnosed with a corneal ulcer and, in addition to that, had excessive amounts of bacteria in her eye due to cleaning her contacts with a saline solution only (sidenote: you need to use a cleaning solution like Clear Care when cleaning your contacts. funny, i used to get paid thousands of dollars annually to advertise that exact product. apparently it REALLY works...?). we saw three doctors and specialists just in that first day. we soon learned that it was likely she´d need a cornea transplant, but we wouldn´t know until the infection had cleared up. fighting the infection would require her to have around-the-clock care, and admitting her to the hospital wasn´t an option: there was never any discussion about it...endre would take the team to hat yai the following day while i stayed with laura in bangkok. the doctors made CERTAIN that we understood how serious this was. i didn´t need them to tell me that...i´ve never seen someone so simply terrified and indescribably pained. it was a really critical time and now that i look back on it, i can´t believe that God entrusted me with something as huge as this. THAT is scary!
her cornea had thinned about 40% due to the ulcer and the bacteria eating away at it. the doctors needed the bacteria to be killed so that they could then concentrate on the ulcer and the scarring that it would leave. their solution: four different sets of eye drops. i´m not kidding around about this next part:
eyedrops #1: twice daily
eyedrops #2: four times daily
eyedrops #3: four times daily
eyedrops #4: HOURLY, 24 hours/day
all of them had to be spread out so that there was at least 30 minutes in between each.
seriously.
eyedrops #4, the hourly drops, needed to be kept refrigerated. naturally, the refrigerator was six flights down (we´ve been staying at the YWAM thailand base). the first night, the four other incredible girls on this team took shifts to give laura her eyedrops so i would be able to get a full night of sleep before they left and it was just laura and i.
we had daily appointments at the hospital - morning, noon and night - for, at least, the four days that followed. so, early the next morning, we said tearful goodbyes to the eight other members of our team as they left for the airport and we headed back to the hospital for our first of many follow-up exams. the ywam base moved us to our own room where we spent most of our time when we weren´t at the hospital: i put in her eye drops, kept in close contact with her poor mother, listened to online sermons, read webMD, restaurant menus, coupon books and the news out loud to her (whats with this swine flu stuff?) and prayed a lot of prayers, did my best to encourage and reminded her that God is more than capable of healing...but it´s just not always in OUR timing. in the week of putting in the eye drops every hour, we only missed one time: we slept through the 3am alarm on the 3rd day. but, later found out that laura´s aunt had inexplicably felt urged to pray for laura at 4pm one afternoon....which was 3am here. so even the one time we missed the drops - someone was praying.
from the very beginning, it seemed like nothing was going right. every time i turned around, a new piece of bad news was being delivered to me - in all areas of my life. the days and nights were indistinguishable - the alarm would go off, i would go downstairs to get the eye drops, bring them upstairs, insert one drop into her eye, return the eye drops and set the alarm for one hour later. 24 hours a day. for five days straight. i began getting physically sick because of the lack of sleep and found myself incapable of processing all of the things that were happening in my life. worse than the physical exhaustion, though, was the emotional struggle of it all - particularly watching laura going through all of this - it often made me feel so helpless. her eye was extremely sensitive to light, she couldn´t see out of it and it got tired very easily, so we just stayed in our room when we weren´t at the hospital. of course i could read and use the computer...but she couldnt. this lead to a bit of boredom, along with many, many tearful conversations and prayers together. one night, we sat on the roof of the building we are staying in, looking out over the city of bangkok. after a long silence, laura finally asked, through her tears, "why are we stuck here, mallory?"
i knew there was an answer to that question. from the minute i knew that i wouldn´t be going to hat yai with the rest of my team - i truly believed there was a reason why. of course, that didn´t make it any easier - i knew there was a reason, but i didn´t know what it was. when we were planning this outreach trip, endre focused more on planning our time in cambodia, while i worked with our contacts in thailand to plan the ministries for this half of the trip. i was beyond excited for our time in thailand and it hurt to send the team on to do the ministries while i stayed back with laura. endre and i decided that he would keep the phone and i would keep the computer, so i could stay in touch with him, our ywam base and laura´s parents via email and skype. i called him every night so we could update each other, and every conversation seemed to make the whole situation harder and harder...
the team was doing INCREDIBLE! they were staying at a beautiful mansion in southern thailand, there were limitless ministry opportunities and the students were stepping out to take advantage of every single one of them! one of the students i always really felt should preach, but he was too scared to do so...DID IT! on top of that, the team unity was at an all time high and they were just being completely broken down in our team worship times - being moved to tears and really opening up to each other. it was everything i had been praying for and wanting for the team. everything and just a little bit more. i was...i am...genuinely excited and SO, SO, SOOOOO proud of them all. i want so much for them and it is amazing to see how God was really leading them in their ministries and pushing them to step out and get out of their comfort zone. even better, i knew it was such a good opportunity for endre to really step out in leadership. he and i have worked perfectly together...but we do so mostly because im the loud, up front one and he does more behind the scenes. getting my loud mouth out of there really allowed him to take ownership of the team and forced him to take over - allowing him to gain a confidence in leadership that he hadn´t had before.
with all that said, it didn´t make it all any easier. i wanted so much for them - and God was providing that...but i am hundreds of miles away! every time i called became more joyful and painful...all at once. they were invited to a thai wedding...they were leading a kids camp on the beach...they were preaching and leading prayer meetings. i wanted to snap my fingers and be there with them - jumping into those ministries along with them.
but then, God would tap me on the shoulder. or, sometimes, kick me in the shin.
"mallory...guess what," He would say, "you´re not in control. this isnt your team. this isnt your trip. and it never was. I can work in and through the students on this team...regardless of your presence. you being there makes no difference in how their ministry goes, because YOU´RE NOT IN CONTROL."
sometimes it was a bit too straight forward for my liking, but it was exactly what i needed to hear. and, honestly now, thank GOODNESS i am not in control. what a mess that would be.
it was always bittersweet talking to endre and i would feel a bit discouraged after getting off the phone with him, but it never took long for my heart and my head to be brought back to bangkok, where i was reminded that laura is my ministry. its not what i thought my ministry in thailand would look like...its not what i planned for...but its what God planned for me and its the job He gave me to do. my ministry is her. and what an honor it was to be given this responsibility.
i was met with an incredible amount of encouragement throughout the week. it was amazing to see all of the people that would write laura to support her and let her know they were praying for her (i would read her emails to her and she would dictate responses to me, since she hasn´t been able to see out of her eye or look into the computer screen). her church really came together in prayer and made it a point to remind her of that. i found a lot of strength through many people in my own life that gave me so much support: most notably, my parents and cori & the boys. but, i received several emails from people that heard about what laura and i were going through - the hourly battle. one email, from a girl i did my own discipleship training school with, was unbelievable:
"you've got the prize in mind and you're not running aimlessly like Paul talks about to the church of Philippe, you're running with a purpose! To reach the end and receive the prize for which Christ is calling you heavenward. Whether it's out on the mission field simply serving the long term missionaries there, whether it's playing Jesus in fleshly form to this student who's suffering, or whether it's full on diving in and getting down to soul saving business, one thing is for sure NONE of it's a waste. That student is going to go home knowing God provided for her. He provided a mother-like figure to take care of her, to show her his love, to say ´it doesn't matter, here I am.´ Maybe it's getting up every hour, seeing that dropping everything, giving up your "right" to sleep, picking up your cross and being covered in the dust of your rabbi is what it's all about. James says consider times of trial as pure joy. Maybe God's teaching you love, true love, devotion to another. Here you are sacrificing sleep and let's face it, probably your sanity, for another. Do you know how huge that is? Do you know how much God is smiling down on you? Something God has really been teaching me is this passage in 2 Samuel 24 where David disobeys God and he has to make this sacrifice to stop this destruction of his people, and when he goes to make this altar the man who owns it says he will give it to him, will hand him the ox to sacrifice and everything, but David says No I will not sacrifice anything to my God that does not cost me something."
God taught me so much this week - and a lot of what i learned, i didn´t even realize i had learned until i read this email and really came to understand just what was happening in my life. sure - sacrifices were made. i didn´t sleep for more than 40 minute increments for five days straight. the point of this isn´t to pat myself on the back...its to express the lifelong lesson i learned in sacrifice for the sake of love. i learned that whatever we´re doing, we can be serving God as we do it. it doesn´t exactly take a rocket scientist to put an eye drop in someone´s eye. but that was the way i could serve God this week. it was how i could play Jesus in the flesh. and, when i look at it that way, i would get up every hour, on the hour every day of my life to be able to serve God like that. what a serious honor. ive also learned a HUGE and tough lesson in humility. i have a love/hate relationship with humility. i think ive always known im not in control but i think a lot of us could always use a reminder...this was a bit of an extreme reminder, but i guess i needed it. i believe i will continue to see the reasons why God kept both laura and i back in bangkok as i look back on all of this, though the ones i already can see are more than enough for me.
plus, bangkok is AMAZING. not a bad place to be "stuck" in.
when we went back to the doctor on thursday night, the eye drop frequency was decreased to every TWO hours!!! (though, poor laura is so desperate to be healed that she actually asked the doctor if we should move the drops to every 30 minutes. i thought i was going to poke her eye out. i just looked at her and said "why do you hate me?") and, even better, we were given a cream to put in her eye at midnight and it can stay in until 6am without drops!!! so we´ve been able to sleep from 12am-6am straight and it is GLORIOUS!!!!!! both laura and i are certain that we wouldnt have been able to do the hourly thing for one more night, so we are so thankful for the timing of this all. talk about God being your strength...you KNOW you´re not living on your own strength when you have to get out of bed every hour...and snoozing the alarm is not an option.
there have been a lot of hard decisions for laura and her family this week regarding staying here or going home. its been a real test of faith for her - she knows and believes that God can heal her eye, but it just takes trusting that He´ll heal it in His timing. she won´t be able to finish out the outreach trip, but i know that God is healing her eye and will continue to do so - her cornea is thickening, the bacteria is dying, her sight is being restored and her chances of needing a transplant are slimming. it has been such a difficult week for her, but seeing her faith and persistence in prayer has been so encouraging. ive seen her on her knees, crying out to God and ive heard her pleas for healing - wanting so badly to be able to do the ministries again. but every time she starts to feel discouraged or doubtful - she asks if we can listen to worship music together. she just wants to worship Him.
we´ve actually been able to have some fun together, despite the circumstances. i´ve found that i´ve really enjoyed this time - not only to spend with laura, but to see God working in her eye. she wanted to wake up one morning and be miraculously healed. that didn´t happen, but He has been healing her! it´s only been a week and shes so much better already...i keep having to remind her of that! it´s been fun to be in touch with her family and friends at home and updating them on her progress - because i knew they were at home cheering for her and lifting her up in prayer...so every piece of good news was met with such enthusiasm. and every piece of bad news was met with even more prayer. we´ve also gained a fan club at the ywam base we are staying at. there are many outreach teams that come to stay here, and they´ve all familiarized themselves with laura´s condition and we have constantly been met at the door after our appointments with questions and excitement. it´s been so fun to go to the hospital with expectant hearts each day to see what God had done in her eye the past 24 hours/eye drops.
plus, as you can imagine, two white girls trying to navigate their way through bangkok on their own would produce some priceless stories (we once had to take three different taxis within 100 yards). we also had to get laura these SUPER ATTRACTIVE, huge, thick black sunglasses. AND, you´ll be pleased to know that we came to our senses with the whole refrigerator location thing. we got a box from the pharmacy at the hospital to keep the eyedrops in with some ice, so i wouldnt have to climb up and down mount everest every hour to get the drops. and, even better, its like the boxes that they carry around donated organs in. its huge. and all that´s in it is one tiny bottle of eye drops. and we have to take it EVERYWHERE WE GO. we´ve put eyedrops in in taxis, restaurants, markets, public restaurants, grocery stores and on a boat. and it looks like we´re carrying around a kidney in a box. in the beginning, i tended to forget that she was nearly blind, so she would follow me everywhere and i´d forget to walk slow and straight for her. poor thing was so disoriented! the other night we had a gecko in our room that we were trying to shoo out...precious, blind little laura couldn´t see clearly and accidentally chopped off the gecko´s tail! so things have, at least, remained interesting. every day was a new and exciting adventure in seeing which of my facial features she could make out. and i definitely think i got enough practice in for motherhood. i never realized how many questions need to be asked at the doctor´s. and how much you want to do all you can to protect your kid and get them healthy with the BEST possible care. surely none of the other patients need anything...your kid should be first in line! we were actually incredibly blessed to go to an super nice hospital about 30 minutes away that has really helped laura and gotten to know us by name.
and they had a starbucks. so everybody wins.
today, our last day together, laura and i had an amazing day GETTING OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN A HOSPITAL VISIT!!! we visited thailand´s ancient city and took a boat ride on the floating markets - which are basically markets over water. its compared to venice - like asia´s venice. the entire city was enclosed in a little area with botanical gardens, palaces, statues and boats. it was beautiful and i got to drive a golf cart around all day which fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine.
i dont aim very high.
i will be flying down to meet the team in hat yai tomorrow morning, while laura goes to stay with a ywam-affiliated missionary family that she became acquainted with through someone in her hometown (small world) to continue with her hospital visits and eye drops. it will be hard to leave her, but im excited to get back with the rest of the team and see what God´s doing down there. i will be there for a week, before leaving endre and the boys there and ill take the girls to do prostitution ministries for about a week. we head back to australia on may 23.
please pray for health and safety on our team. endre and i had budgeted $300 for first aid when we made the budget in australia and we always kind of considered it to be "extra" money because we didnt think we´d ever have to use it. clearly, this is both of our first times leading a team...
i thank God for the way He has used me this week, even though it wasn´t in my imperfect plans. i thank Him for comforting me emotionally and for strengthening me physically. i thank Him for giving me words of encouragement to speak to laura when she felt like there was no end - or healing - in sight. i thank Him for waking me up every hour. i thank Him for teaching me the lessons i´ve learned and showing me all i´ve seen. i thank Him for good, english speaking doctors and for helping laura and i work together to get all the information we needed about her treatment, without our own parents or doctors there to help us. i thank Him for giving us laughter despite the circumstances in our lives. and i thank Him for you guys...the faithful prayer warriors back home.
the things im learning may only be getting through to me at a fairly slow rate, but i am thankful for every last drop of it...
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