Dealing with Sickness (While Traveling) Part 1

(I just composed a long post about sickness and decided I would divide it into shorter parts, rather than one long, long one, so expect additional pieces in the coming days.)

Any of us who have traveled extensively know that it is an exhausting experience, even if we enjoy it. However, you can not live as expatriates without travel. Duh. Do you pray for travels? How often do any of us start out sick? How often do we arrive or return sick because of tiredness or foreign entities endemic to the new country? Things like water or food or bathroom habits can be a real killer. Prayers.

I am reflecting on sickness because I just carried suitcases out to a van to take friends to the airport. This is the pastoral couple with our organization (ERRC) who were in Beijing to cover someone else’s classes in December and then took over for me when I was called home suddenly due to the serious illness of my sister. About 4 years ago they taught at Peking University for a time, and have maintained many contacts here as well as doing recruitment for our organization. They lived here for 5 weeks in December and January, went back to the States, came back for our mission retreat in Thailand for a week in February, and now were back for two weeks on a visioning trip with new recruits. These are faithful servants of the Lord in their 70’s.  They left to fly back to CA now, while trying to get over  rather serious eye infections, coughs, and exhaustion, etc.  I know they think these trips have been worth it. For example, the delightful couple with them on the visioning trip will probably arrive to teach next fall. Certainly they will be tremendous supporters of the work here. But at what cost? Prayers.