Poured Out

Last night, it hit me all at once. I felt fine as we played some games in the hotel lobby, and as I posted some blogs and took my nightly malaria medication, Malarone. Just as I was about to get in bed, I was struck with a heavy flu feeling. My whole body ached. I was freezing, but my skin was on fire. My head pounded. My stomach was mutinous: all symptoms closely resembling those I understand are consistent with malaria. As far as I know, I still had no mosquito bites, so, in addition to being miserable, I was also perplexed. How the malarkey did I get malaria? I pulled myself into bed, bundled up in the sheets, prayed with all of my considerably diminished might, and fell asleep cursing the name of Malarone. I slept through most of the night, waking up only once, but when I awoke this morning, I felt as though I hadn't slept at all. The state of the bedsheets suggested the same. The bed looked like it had been the battleground for a pair of dueling baboons. Battlegrounds live unfortunate lives. (Ok, so they don't live lives at all... because they're battlegrounds... but if they did, their lives would be unfortunate.) They have no say in the matter of who the battle-waging contestants will be, and little influence over who will be victorious, yet, when the battle is over, they are often as decimated as the defeated party. Thus was the state of my bed, and thus was the state of my body. Miraculously, I felt no more aches or chills, but I was completely exhausted. God and Malarone had been victorious (yes, I will continue to operate under the assumption that I had malaria for one night). Praise the name of the Lord, and bless the name of Malarone. Reluctantly, I climbed into the shower - after having vowed never to 'shower' here again - and I felt very much like the empty cup I was about to use for the purpose of repeatedly pouring frigid water over my head.

I wasn't the most lively of breakfast companions, and I didn't eat much. After breakfast, Ryan gave a short devotional from 2 Timothy. Most of us are familiar with Paul's words about fighting the good fight, finishing the race, and keeping the faith, but I think we often forget to consider the passage in context, as we often forget with passages in general. Just a verse before, Paul writes that he had been poured out. He was at the end of his life, and at the end of his ministry. Apropo, considering that I felt as though I had just narrowly escaped the end of my life, and our team had reached the end of our intended ministry. Today was to be our final day of actual missions work; from tomorrow on, only traveling and a handful of miscellaneous excursions remain. Though I had not the energy to express much appreciation, Ryan's words came as a timely dose of encouragement. I had precious few drops left to pour out, but this being our final day of ministry, it was a good time to tip the cup upside-down.

It wasn't long before the tipping of the cup began. I was too exhausted to feign excitement, and too duty-driven to skip out on the final day of pastors' training. After slumping through one of the lively Kenyan worship times I'm normally quite fond of, I slumped through some of our team teaching (each team member is responsible for teaching a section of the training). This particular section, however, was one of those followed by small group time, at which point my slumping ceased, due to the fact that I was needed to lead a small group of pastors. Slumping resumed shortly until it was my turn to teach. My section of the teaching is the section regarding discipleship and follow-up, which necessarily comes last, because you can't train people on how to follow-up with something until you've taught them how to do something that requires follow-up. It has been a blessing to teach the discipleship section, especially after having recently been subject to Mike's endless ramblings on the very same subject. But discipleship comes after evangelism, and since the training is largely evangelistic in nature, I was the closer. And like Jordan dropping 38 with the flu, or like a hobbled Kirk Gibson knocking it out of the park in his only plate appearance (it's no coincidence that the examples I've chosen, while modest, reflect my own physical limitations), I sealed the training brilliantly. At least I did so in my head, probably thanks to my malaria-induced stupor. I was speaking with a translator, and while he didn't seem to be having trouble interpreting my undoubtedly slurred speech, he was speaking in Swahili, so he could have been saying anything for all I know.

After eating a few bites of lunch (which I stomached reluctantly, only because I knew that I was supposed to eat, and because I knew that if I didn't, I'd be pestered to do so by one or all of the women on our team), it was time for the final day of sports camp. Nothing like a little bit of exertion to squeeze the last few drops of energy out of a tired body. Of course, I am making it out to sound far worse than it was, and the camp ran very smoothly, but I was pretty exhausted. When we gathered the kids together for the salvation message, the recently clear skies had turned many tumultuous shades of gray. Ryan invited them to accept Christ, and approximately all of them stood up. It was a Christian school, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was genuine for a few of them, and peer pressure for many more. Interesting to think that in the US, it's usually peer pressure keeping the kids in their seats, not prompting them to stand. The first few drops of rain began to fall as we finished our final prayer, and before long the heavens were pouring out grace on a bunch of weary servants and a few excited children, new to the family of God.