Well, there's nothing like an entire week of sickness to put things into perspective!! Last Monday I came down with some sort of cold/flu/migraine mix, which knocked me out for six glorious days......the first three of which I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep or eat (until I discovered sleeping pills!!), and the next three of which I could sleep but still couldn't eat and was too weak to do anything but continue to lie in bed moaning and groaning! Needless to say, it's a great weight-loss plan, but not so great on the morale. :-) Thankfully today I've already kept down three small meals, and tomorrow I'm (gasp) actually planning on going to work!!
What I learned during my week of bed rest:
1) Asking for help is about the hardest thing in the world for me, but something I must learn how to do!!! (even if I'm so weak and frail that as soon as I call my poor, unsuspecting friends, all I can do is burst into tears! it's OKAY!)
2) On the same note, bursting into tears while calling in sick greatly increases the credibility. :-) (Why didn't I think of this years ago?? HA!!!)
3) I "wasted" a whole week of my life lying in bed, shut away from the rest of the world....but that's all I want to waste!! No more settling, waiting, hesitating, wrestling endlessly with questions that I already know the answer to...bring on SPRINGTIME, adventure, JOY, a fresh start, change, growth, laughter, and spontaneity!! I want to start LIVING again! (okay, so that might seem a bit dramatic, but I've had a lot of time to think!)
4) I have a pretty smoking awesome family that holds nothing back in their expressions of love for me!!!! Flowers, cards, chicken noodle soup, twenty phone calls a day to check up on me, listening to me blubber....if that isn't love, I don't know what is! :-)
and last but not least....
5) I never want to get sick again. :-)
Africa's Angels
Posted by
little miss sunshine
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I've been looking through some of my old writing today and just came across this article that was published in Brio last year...yes, the article that made me famous, complete with a cover story and all. :-) Here it is now!!
Africa’s Angels
by Sherry Funk
I used to be able to watch World Vision specials on TV without batting an eyelash. Sure, I was sad for the children they showed – starving, malnourished, and orphaned. But it all seemed so unreal, so far away, and I didn’t see how the problems in Africa affected me, a typical carefree North American girl.
For years I had dreamed of traveling and experiencing the world and somehow making a difference in my own unique way, but Africa? I was much more interested in the history and culture and breathtaking beauty of Europe. Or maybe the sunny beaches of Hawaii. Anything but living in a grass hut in the middle of a hot desert, munching on dried caterpillars as the sun beat down on me. Besides poverty and the AIDS epidemic, that’s all I thought Africa had to offer.
So it was funny and slightly ironic that after months of trying to arrange a short-term missions trip to anywhere else, I suddenly found myself on a plane bound for the very continent that had once held no attraction. My destination was a tiny farm just outside Johannesburg, South Africa, where I would spend three months caring for abandoned babies and orphaned children with an organization called The Love of Christ Ministries.
Stepping off the plane in Johannesburg after two long days of travel, I was filled with anticipation for the adventure that lay ahead. Visions of casually lounging in the hot African sun day after day, reading stories to smiling, well-behaved toddlers, and rocking precious babies to sleep at night danced through my mind.
The next morning, however, after a sleepless night battling jet lag, reality began to set in. I stepped into the nursery and was immediately met by a flurry of activity, babies everywhere, screaming, laughing, and running, sleeping, bathing, eating, and playing. Volunteers rushed around, confidently preparing bottles and balancing several babies in their arms. I stood stunned, overwhelmed, then felt a tug on my pant leg and looked down to see an adorable little boy gazing up at me with a wide smile, raising his arms in anticipation.
His name was Ignatius, and as I picked him up and he snuggled close, I suddenly wondered if I had what it would take. After all, I was the girl who had changed a grand total of three diapers in my lifetime. Now I suddenly found myself responsible for a nursery overflowing with unfamiliar faces. Looking at the feeding charts, I stumbled over names like Nkululeko and Zinhle and Noluthando and Mpho. If I couldn’t even pronounce their names, how would I ever learn each individual baby’s schedule, their preferences, and their needs? There were AIDS babies and those suffering from tuberculosis, heart conditions, and fetal alcohol syndrome. There were tiny, fragile premature babies still in incubators, and others dependent on oxygen. There were active, energetic toddlers asking questions and begging for attention…the list went on and on.
“What was I thinking?” was a question I found myself asking during my first week at TLC as I struggled to make it through each day. Then one evening, after twelve hours alone in the quarantine room caring for eight sick babies, I finally reached the end of my rope. When the night shift girls came to take over, they found me sitting on the couch balancing Wendy and Unika in my arms as I fed them each a bottle, rocking Toby in his car seat with my foot, Zein
and Barbara’s screams providing the background music – and all the while the tears were streaming down my face. “I can’t do this!” I told Catherine, one of the British girls, as I handed the babies over to her and fled to the solace of our cottage.
That night, though, everything changed. After sending a desperate email home, I sat down and commiserated with my Texan roommate Kelby over a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate. It didn’t take long before we were laughing together in the midst of our tears, wondering what had happened to the strong, confident girls we once thought we were. And then, just as we began to contemplate dragging ourselves off to bed, knowing the five o’clock wake up call would come soon enough, there was a knock on the cottage door. “Do you girls want to come watch a movie with us?” came the shy invitation from one of the older boys in the main house. As tired as we were, how could we refuse such an offer?
That night, as the animated adventures of Hercules flashed across the screen – with Crispin snuggled next to me, Jesse and Kieran fighting noisily for a place in my lap, and Tommy sitting primly at my other side rolling his eyes at the antics of his brothers and sisters – something deep inside my heart was touched. Suddenly, I no longer cared about the huge challenges that lay ahead or how overwhelmed and homesick I was. The tears that filled my eyes had nothing to do with me, and at that moment, I knew why I had come to Africa. It was for them, for each of the precious kids that now surrounded me, and for the nursery full of sleeping babies in the next room. I have never felt as blessed as I felt that night, filled with so much love, and thanking God for the amazing opportunity He had given me. I couldn’t wait to love every child, and every baby, that He had brought into my life.
From that moment on, I soaked up every minute of my African experience. And it wasn’t long before the long, exhausting days in the nursery were second-nature and TLC became home to me. There was nothing like learning to feed four hungry babies at once, or supervising bath time with eight unruly toddlers. There was nothing like showering Wendy with kisses and tickles and words of love and seeing her sad, serious face light up in a bright smile. And nothing warmed my heart more than walking across the playground and hearing Theresa and Beniah and Favian’s excited screams as they spotted me, running as fast as their little legs would carry them into my open arms.
Of course, there were many adventures too. I’ll never forget an early morning bike ride among the giraffes and zebras at a nature reserve, shopping at busy markets in Johannesburg, and visiting a traditional tribal village. There were trips to the hospital to pick up abandoned babies, walking down the rundown hallways in a daze as starving children reached out to be held. I visited Soweto, the center of the apartheid uprising in South Africa, and walked through Nelson Mandela’s home. Hiking through a poor township where millions lived in tiny tin shacks, I marveled at the spirit of the African people. They had nothing, and yet the dirty, dusty streets were alive with laughter and singing, smiles, children playing, and people rushing over to shake our hands and give us hugs. It was amazing.
I could write a novel on my time in Africa, full of stories of growth and learning, of laughter and adventures shared with friends made from all over the world. And even though I’m back in North America now, surrounded by everything familiar and comfortable, not a day goes by when my thoughts don’t turn to the children living in the huge farmhouse down a rough dirt road in a continent far, far away. Because of them, Africa now holds a huge place in my heart. My apartment walls are plastered with pictures of beautiful, smiling black faces. I have been changed, but not because of any heroic selfless act on my part. No, I have been changed because of the open, enthusiastic expressions of love offered to a homesick girl by a family of children who had lost everything but still found so much to give. For despite their horrific pasts and the pain they lived with every day, the AIDS, the loneliness, the uncertainty – they loved freely and openly without holding anything back
I pray that I will learn to do the same, no matter where God leads me – that my life, and yours, will overflow with the love and hope of God.
Africa’s Angels
by Sherry Funk
I used to be able to watch World Vision specials on TV without batting an eyelash. Sure, I was sad for the children they showed – starving, malnourished, and orphaned. But it all seemed so unreal, so far away, and I didn’t see how the problems in Africa affected me, a typical carefree North American girl.
For years I had dreamed of traveling and experiencing the world and somehow making a difference in my own unique way, but Africa? I was much more interested in the history and culture and breathtaking beauty of Europe. Or maybe the sunny beaches of Hawaii. Anything but living in a grass hut in the middle of a hot desert, munching on dried caterpillars as the sun beat down on me. Besides poverty and the AIDS epidemic, that’s all I thought Africa had to offer.
So it was funny and slightly ironic that after months of trying to arrange a short-term missions trip to anywhere else, I suddenly found myself on a plane bound for the very continent that had once held no attraction. My destination was a tiny farm just outside Johannesburg, South Africa, where I would spend three months caring for abandoned babies and orphaned children with an organization called The Love of Christ Ministries.
Stepping off the plane in Johannesburg after two long days of travel, I was filled with anticipation for the adventure that lay ahead. Visions of casually lounging in the hot African sun day after day, reading stories to smiling, well-behaved toddlers, and rocking precious babies to sleep at night danced through my mind.
The next morning, however, after a sleepless night battling jet lag, reality began to set in. I stepped into the nursery and was immediately met by a flurry of activity, babies everywhere, screaming, laughing, and running, sleeping, bathing, eating, and playing. Volunteers rushed around, confidently preparing bottles and balancing several babies in their arms. I stood stunned, overwhelmed, then felt a tug on my pant leg and looked down to see an adorable little boy gazing up at me with a wide smile, raising his arms in anticipation.
His name was Ignatius, and as I picked him up and he snuggled close, I suddenly wondered if I had what it would take. After all, I was the girl who had changed a grand total of three diapers in my lifetime. Now I suddenly found myself responsible for a nursery overflowing with unfamiliar faces. Looking at the feeding charts, I stumbled over names like Nkululeko and Zinhle and Noluthando and Mpho. If I couldn’t even pronounce their names, how would I ever learn each individual baby’s schedule, their preferences, and their needs? There were AIDS babies and those suffering from tuberculosis, heart conditions, and fetal alcohol syndrome. There were tiny, fragile premature babies still in incubators, and others dependent on oxygen. There were active, energetic toddlers asking questions and begging for attention…the list went on and on.
“What was I thinking?” was a question I found myself asking during my first week at TLC as I struggled to make it through each day. Then one evening, after twelve hours alone in the quarantine room caring for eight sick babies, I finally reached the end of my rope. When the night shift girls came to take over, they found me sitting on the couch balancing Wendy and Unika in my arms as I fed them each a bottle, rocking Toby in his car seat with my foot, Zein
and Barbara’s screams providing the background music – and all the while the tears were streaming down my face. “I can’t do this!” I told Catherine, one of the British girls, as I handed the babies over to her and fled to the solace of our cottage.
That night, though, everything changed. After sending a desperate email home, I sat down and commiserated with my Texan roommate Kelby over a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate. It didn’t take long before we were laughing together in the midst of our tears, wondering what had happened to the strong, confident girls we once thought we were. And then, just as we began to contemplate dragging ourselves off to bed, knowing the five o’clock wake up call would come soon enough, there was a knock on the cottage door. “Do you girls want to come watch a movie with us?” came the shy invitation from one of the older boys in the main house. As tired as we were, how could we refuse such an offer?
That night, as the animated adventures of Hercules flashed across the screen – with Crispin snuggled next to me, Jesse and Kieran fighting noisily for a place in my lap, and Tommy sitting primly at my other side rolling his eyes at the antics of his brothers and sisters – something deep inside my heart was touched. Suddenly, I no longer cared about the huge challenges that lay ahead or how overwhelmed and homesick I was. The tears that filled my eyes had nothing to do with me, and at that moment, I knew why I had come to Africa. It was for them, for each of the precious kids that now surrounded me, and for the nursery full of sleeping babies in the next room. I have never felt as blessed as I felt that night, filled with so much love, and thanking God for the amazing opportunity He had given me. I couldn’t wait to love every child, and every baby, that He had brought into my life.
From that moment on, I soaked up every minute of my African experience. And it wasn’t long before the long, exhausting days in the nursery were second-nature and TLC became home to me. There was nothing like learning to feed four hungry babies at once, or supervising bath time with eight unruly toddlers. There was nothing like showering Wendy with kisses and tickles and words of love and seeing her sad, serious face light up in a bright smile. And nothing warmed my heart more than walking across the playground and hearing Theresa and Beniah and Favian’s excited screams as they spotted me, running as fast as their little legs would carry them into my open arms.
Of course, there were many adventures too. I’ll never forget an early morning bike ride among the giraffes and zebras at a nature reserve, shopping at busy markets in Johannesburg, and visiting a traditional tribal village. There were trips to the hospital to pick up abandoned babies, walking down the rundown hallways in a daze as starving children reached out to be held. I visited Soweto, the center of the apartheid uprising in South Africa, and walked through Nelson Mandela’s home. Hiking through a poor township where millions lived in tiny tin shacks, I marveled at the spirit of the African people. They had nothing, and yet the dirty, dusty streets were alive with laughter and singing, smiles, children playing, and people rushing over to shake our hands and give us hugs. It was amazing.
I could write a novel on my time in Africa, full of stories of growth and learning, of laughter and adventures shared with friends made from all over the world. And even though I’m back in North America now, surrounded by everything familiar and comfortable, not a day goes by when my thoughts don’t turn to the children living in the huge farmhouse down a rough dirt road in a continent far, far away. Because of them, Africa now holds a huge place in my heart. My apartment walls are plastered with pictures of beautiful, smiling black faces. I have been changed, but not because of any heroic selfless act on my part. No, I have been changed because of the open, enthusiastic expressions of love offered to a homesick girl by a family of children who had lost everything but still found so much to give. For despite their horrific pasts and the pain they lived with every day, the AIDS, the loneliness, the uncertainty – they loved freely and openly without holding anything back
I pray that I will learn to do the same, no matter where God leads me – that my life, and yours, will overflow with the love and hope of God.
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