Falling and Bawling

This week has been just plain crazy! There are so many things that happened that I won't be able to write them all down. I will try to hit some of the high and low points.

I, along with my fellow DTS staffers, decided to fast this week and pray together for the students at times we would normally be chowing down. I decided I would fast for a week. My friend, Abbey, advised against this since before this, my longest fast was 24 hours. I am stubborn and since I would be drinking juice in addition to water, I would be fine. The first two days weren't too bad. I had a constant headache and my sense of smell was heightened. Going to Costco was slightly painful with the smell of pizza permeating the entire store and samples at the end of each aisle.

Amy, my best friend here, left to go home for a wedding this past Sunday and I won't get to see her again until I see her in Bangladesh three months from now. She is so important to me and there were definitely some tears when she left. Little did I know, that was just the start of the large amount of crying I did this week.

On Monday, we had our staff meeting that we have every other Monday. These meetings have become hard for me to take. As DTS staff, we don't get much time to ourselves and one of our times off is Monday afternoons. The ending times of these meetings vary greatly and it is hard for me not to think of my free afternoon slipping away as the meeting goes longer and longer.

Before the meeting started, our fearless DTS school leader, Maria announced that we, along with our students would be reading through the New Testament on Wednesday into the night, therefore taking away the usual night off for staff and students. This was too much for my emotional, food-deprived body to handle. Also earlier that day we had a meeting to talk about who on our team would be going on outreach and who wouldn't. I really don't want to tell anyone that they're not ready and can't go. So, after my night off is stripped from me, my right eye starts tearing up. It is everything I have not to start bawling during our staff meeting. Unfortunately the seating for the meeting is a big circle of chairs so all my friends can see my very obvious "about to have a breakdown" look. Our base director had me and my fellow DTS staffers come in the middle and the rest of the staff prayed for us. It was so good. We really needed it and I bawled.

After the meeting, I just wanted to run to my room so I could finally cry in private for the two hours I had till I had to be at night lecture. But Maria stopped us and made us meet again. That fact alone almost made me lose it. I don't even remember what she was talking about and then she said a few magic words- "Liz, take the night off." This made me bawl the hardest. I was just so exhausted.

Then on Wednesday-Day 3 of my fasting, we were doing the dreaded all-day New Testament reading. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought. We only got through the gospels but it was cool to see the disciples' different points of view and how it all fit together. In the morning, I had drank plenty of juice and water but I felt weird. I went to the bathroom and as I was locking the door, I got a head rush. Then I felt like I had a full dream and I found myself sitting on the floor with my back against the door and my head hurt slightly like I had hit it. I didn't know how long I was out but none of the students said anything when I came out so it musn't have been too long or loud. I decided at that point to break my fast for health reasons. Pretty weird.