His Peace in the Hospital

Each year the school gets all the teachers away for an overnight to talk about who we are and where we are going. What a great time to build the most important resources of our school, our people. One of our families from the school runs a small "resort" in the mountains an hour from Chiang Rai, and these cabins are a great setting for retreat and retooling. The afternoon of the retreat brought with it free time and many of us, including Julie, joined in on a waterball game in the pool with splashing and friendly dunking. Following the game Julie noticed a little fatigue. Of course this seemed natural following all the sporting and rough play.

Later that evening as she slept she was awakened by pains in her belly. The pains intensified but seemed to be possible flu or stomach issues. My concern grew as she was hurting and unable to sleep or resolve the issue. The next day she skipped all the activities and remained in bed suffering from “the flu.” That next evening after returning home, she felt warm so we took her temperature, a rare event. I can’t recall that I have ever taken Julie’s temp. She asked me to look on the internet at stomach pains combined with fever. Playing internet doctor is never good, so a call to Julie’s brother, Jackson, a doctor in Waco, seemed the wise route. That phone call sent us packing and off to the local hospital for a check up.

The pain continued and worsened as the night came on. Here we sat in the emergency room with a doctor prodding and telling us it might be a good idea to check in. A few papers were filed and moments later we found ourselves overnighting at Overbrook Hospital. Previous to this experience, our general joking as we pass by this and other hospitals sounds something like, “Don’t wanna go there.” And yet present circumstances demanded that “there” we were.

The night became challenging rather quickly. After talking to the doctor and then processing the doctor’s evaluation through phone calls with my brother in law, it was becoming quite obvious something was really wrong. More pain for Julie. The blood work returned marking out most of the simple problems. Then, more pain, followed by more discussions with Jackson on my mobile.

Here is where it gets really complicated. Walking back and forth from the nurses station with requests for more visits from doctors and surgeons that were not available to me at 2 a.m., somewhere in that hallway I recognized that our American reality of having a CAT scan and a surgeon ready and available at any moment of the night was not a present reality for our situation. With her symptoms, the health care we were used to would have already had her under the knife pulling out her appendix. The health care we had was saying let’s put her on antibiotics and move on this in the morning. We were assured, “We’ll get a CAT scan as soon as possible,” in other words tomorrow morning.

More push from me, more “Let’s do it now.” More surprised looks saying, how are we gonna do this now when it is the middle of the night? Finally, God reminds me that it really is hard to kick against the goads. Jesus made it clear in that room at 2 a.m. that he meant what he said, “My peace I leave with you and I do not give as the world gives.” My response, “So Jesus, you are saying we are gonna have to sit here, this woman in pain from something that could at any point kill her, and we are to trust you?” Kinda a very unAmerican reality, not having any cards to play. A mandatory "Be still." While we don’t want to go back there, during those hours of resting in "Be still," Jesus was close.

My friend Timothy from Zimbabwe taught me a song many years ago called “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” It recalls that Jesus is the one who keeps us. I sang that song a lot that night. The next six hours would be greater pain and more concerns. His peace would keep us.

On Sunday Nov. 1 at one p.m. they surgically removed Julie’s highly infected appendix. She is alive and recovering and we, by grace, once again recognize that our fragile lives are in His hands.

Here is one more just for interest:

When Sunday morning rolled around, they took us by ambulance to another hospital in town to get the CAT scan because the doctors who could read the CAT scan at our hospital were in Bangkok or having surgery. Grrr. Cost for ambulance ride…$6. Hmm, that might be an interesting piece to add to U.S. healthcare cost discussions.

Julie's Thoughts

So October was the month I had set aside to pray for breakthrough in various areas, “stuck” places. I was feeling like there were many. God had sent a dear friend, Amy Cox, to visit for a week, and His love was evident in dear times spent with Amy. Still believing for more breakthrough before October's end, it’s interesting how the events of the next 5 nights and 4 days in the hospital unfolded. God truly brought the breakthrough. I entered the hospital on October 31st, Halloween, followed by three nights of a Buddhist celebration called Loi Kratong. Loi Kratong is a beautiful and fun holiday to watch, but spiritually disturbing with three days of ceremonial contrition where small lanterns are floated in the rivers to honor the river spirits and beg penitence for human sins against nature. The atmosphere was heavy to say the least. We were in a Christian hospital started by protestant missionaries long ago, yet many sobering talks of religion with the nurses revealed that the nurses and doctors of this Christian hospital were all Buddhist.

As we watched the celebratory fireworks from my hospital window each night, I was reminded of what I had been reading the last few weeks. In October I like to read biographies of men and women of faith in preparation for celebrating All Saints Day, so I was reading again a favorite book, Amma: The Life and Words of Amy Carmichael. Amy was a missionary in India for fifty years rescuing and then mothering children from temple prostitution. She writes, “ India (Thailand can easily be substituted here) has been drugged by the poison of subtle philosophies and by the deadly draughts of degrading superstitions, till she seems beyond the power of all our efforts to awaken and arouse. . . The giant is not awakened? What then is the remedy? . . .We have not given prayer its proper place in the plan of our campaign. . . .The energy of the flesh, of our intellect, of our position, of our very enthusiasm, this has been allowed to usurp, to a lamentable extent, the place of the one power which can rouse immortal souls from the slumber of eternal death—the might of the living God, the energy of the Holy Ghost. “ I truly am thankful for quiet times to pray while confined to the hospital bed.

God brought the breakthrough I had been asking for in “taking every thought captive.” In the many transitions of the last five months, I was feeling tired, spiritually vulnerable in many ways and hearing many lies. As I entered the hospital, I felt God’s urging to be single-minded. I think being in a small, foreign hospital had been one of the things I secretly feared most living here, and I was so comforted every minute by God’s nearness. The endless changing of IVs, the pain, the unknown, the not being able to keep food down or in, etc. Such sweet times recalling scriptures and meditating on Father God’s character brought such peace in the midst of chaos.

Once again, God met me in speaking and understanding Thai in challenging situations. Another breakthrough.

I had been asking God for breakthrough in relationships here as we adjust to new “team” life as our family working in the context of the international school. I feel swallowed up by the love of the community here with caring for our children, bringing meals to our home, prayers, and other random acts of kindness.

Let’s just say that loving “in sickness and in health” went to a much deeper level as it is expected in Thai hospitals that a family member will stay and care for the patient. As you pass some hospital rooms, many family members sleep on the floor as they stay with the patient. So Jak and Brent and I had some intense bonding. My dear husband cleaned me up again and again through all the nightmarish situations. I am humbled by his love. Interesting how God can use the wildest situations to go deeper still in our marriage relationship.

While I was in the hospital, my mom shared with us about my granddaddy. Having recently been moved to a nursing home, he told mom that morning that he had been reciting memorized scripture to himself trying to keep his mind sharp. He is 95. What a great testimony. The truth is, in the middle of the night laying in the hospital bed in deep pain waiting for the morning to come, the one thing that truly "saved" me was was recalling scripture and meditating on the character of God and Savior Jesus. Praying the psalms and the words of our Lord kept me going.

“O keep me, Lord, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed or disappointed, for my trust and my refuge are in You. Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for and expect You.” Psalm 25:20-21

A final story of God’s kindness. Julie was taken to have her incision stitched on the third morning in the hospital. It happened that I was taking Jak to school when they took her. She was alone, still in great pain, and couldn’t eat. That morning was difficult. Yet throughout the procedure an older nurse held Julie’s hand, wiped her tears, and then said to her in Thai, “God bless you.” The first believer she met in this Christian hospital, and just when she needed encouragement the most. This nurse angel would not leave her side until the procedure was finished and the orderlies came to get Julie to take her to her room. She laid her hands on Julie and prayed for her. Her final exhortation to Julie in English, “Be strong!”

Education and Thailand

A little while back one of the church planters for Overseas Mission Fellowship visited me in my office. This is a guy who has been here for years and is responsible for many efforts of church planting in Northern Thailand, Laos, Burma, and even southern China. His daughters attend the school. As we discussed some efforts for the school, he encouraged me that what we were doing in our work at the school was planting churches. He explained that for a church planting movement to happen in any area, first you need the area saturated in prayer, and next you need an international school. Hmmm. . . Recently I read about how Korea went from hostile to Christianity to a Christian nation. Joseph Karl Kim, headmaster of Central Christian Academy, writes, “In an environment antagonistic to Christianity, it was the Christian schools that took the gospel to scores of young people and trained them with a biblical worldview. These schools provided the Korean church and the nation with well-trained Christian leaders. Within 25 years of their inception, the Christian schools became the engine of social change and transformation. It is interesting to note that the Christian schools in Korea were flourishing nearly 50 years before such a movement even began in the United States.”

We have had five years of having the great opportunity to educate young people in Thailand and share with them the truth of Christ. What a joy that God would use our skills and experience as educators to build His church in Thailand. As we share Christ with students, teachers, and parents, we are quite aware that education is a powerful tool for God’s kingdom coming to Thailand. May Christ use our education efforts to get His much deserved glory in this place.

Please pray for the Chiang Rai International Christian School to honor Jesus and bring students and families to Christ.