RELYING ON JESUS AS NEVER BEFORE

Within three minutes after loading in the back of the van on Thursday morning, August 4th to leave on the mission trip to Cambodia and Thailand, panic spread through me. I had started my malaria immunization pills as directed, at eleven o’clock the day before, and now I was feeling what I could best describe as a combination of sea sickness with the flu.

Now the thought of the 55 hours of travel that lay before me seemed overwhelming. When the van pulled into Chicago, I was thinking about simply staying there and having my wife pick me up, but I prayed and continued on. When the plane arrived in Los Angeles, I was willing to forfeit the $3,500.00 I had already paid, and purchase a ticket back home. All I could think of was curling up in a ball in my own bed.

I called my wife from Los Angeles and scared her with my verbal fragility. I asked her for prayer and also for prayer from my sister in law. They prayed and I continued on my journey.

Over the next few days my “mild case of malaria” included shaking, chills, headache, hot flashes, tiredness, nausea, sweats and more. During this three day episode, the single response from my mouth, and in my mind, was the Name of Jesus.

In Cambodia on the 6th, after taking another capsule with the continuing result, I simply quit taking any malaria medicine. I trusted Jesus would either keep me from contracting malaria or heal me later if I did. While I lay awake that first night, wrestling in bed, I prayed continuously. Again, Jesus’ name was my single strength.

Did I need to endure this sickness to put Jesus in the foremost part of my mind?

Jesus was faithful. He served the orphans and my teammates, allowing me to participate, and He gave me the biggest taste of heaven I have had on earth. The Holy Spirit has shown me that Jesus’ kingdom is infinitely larger than I once envisioned in own mind and heart, and the orphans are in the front row. God allowed me to kneel at the orphans’ feet and worship Jesus with them. Now I can pray to the Father to help me better focus on Jesus’ kingdom.