Prayer Request: Help! I’m getting sick because I thumb wrestled with the orphans.

UPDATE: Thanks for your prayers and emails. I got violently ill five hours after posting that blog.  I was in tons of pain in my stomach and groin. No one was at the camp. They had all gone to see the Bri Bri tribe. Deanne had gotten me an iPhone which wiped out all my contacts as the HRTWAM camp started. When my groin started hurting, I tried getting a hold of someone to anoint me. I downloaded What’s App on my phone but didn’t even have my wife's number yet, so I couldn’t get in touch with anyone. I thought I heard something next door, so keeled over, I went there and knocked. That was Joel Sanchez’s room. No one was there. I think the act of hobbling over to his room to ask for anointing helped. Because when I got back to my cabin, tons of poisons were released. Joel anointed me when he returned a few hours later. Then I spent the next 24 hours feeling better but feeling like someone had punched me in the gut. OUCH!  LESSONS LEARNED: I will work at using the combination of Echinacea & Goldenseal as well as Thieves essential oils. These are great ways at getting my immunity in top shape. I also need to wash my hands more often, especially after working with the smallest children and before eating. Cheers!

My iron stomach was having a little trouble last night but this morning it is really struggling. I overheard that a kid at the orphanage got really sick yesterday afternoon and suddenly I’m in a strange dilemma. I’ll need a prayer covering for sickness until I leave in mid-August. My memory takes me back to 1990-1 when I ran into the same dilemma. I was teaching first grade in California to 34 needy kids. All the first grade ADHD and ADD kids were put in my classroom that year. On a positive note, It was the year I learned to be a decent teacher. On the negative side, I caught Pneumonia for the second time that year. I affectionately called my kids “little snots” that year because their noses were always running and I seemed always on the verge of getting a cold from them. It has been a couple decades since I’ve taught little snots. Yesterday, at the orphanage, many of the littlest kids came up and wanted to thumb wrestle. On my visit to the orphanage at Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) I started thumb wrestling with the kids. I had done this on trips to Argentina and Malaysia years ago. I found it was a great way to help break the ice with little kids when you don’t speak their language. Last week during the English assessments, I thumb wrestled a bunch of kids. So yesterday, a bunch of kids started lining up for thumb wrestling. For a little while I was wrestling two different kids at the same time. I also gave out more than a hundred high-fives. Now I’m feeling sick and there is no doubt in my mind that these two events are related. So what is the best solution for this issue. Here are three ideas.

Solution 1: Start wearing a surgical mask and plastic gloves every day I go to the school. My body doesn’t have the same immunities that it had back in 1991. I can also institute no more high-fives and no hugs or physical interaction. I’ve taught in a lot of places, but I’ve never seen a more needy bunch of kids than these. Physically they are well taken care of. That’s not it. They have very loving “Tia’s” (house parents) that do a great job. However, a little hug can show them that as a teacher, I care. When I taught first grade in California, the school ordered that teachers could give no hugs. This was a rule that our principal claimed New York state had instituted. As that school year went on, I noticed all the other first grade teachers were ignoring that rule and hugging their neediest kids as they entered the room in the morning. As I look in these orphans eyes, I can see that some of these kids need hugs to see how much we care.

Solution 2: Be balanced and just give fist bumps. This is a real possibility. In my mind, it seems that it will be harder to catch sickness from a fist bump. However, I’m thinking this will work with the older kids. However, what about the youngest kids. Yesterday, there was a little three-year-old girl that politely asked one of our dual language students to ask me to come over to say hello. I went over and immediately recognized her as one of the shiest girls in her house, (which has most of the three to five-year-old kids in it). I recognized that she was the little girl that finally warmed up to me on the English assessment test. With three year olds, the test basically tried to figure out if they knew any ABC’s or numbers in English. Then the translator and I sang the alphabet song to each of the little kids and they loved it. So yesterday, I started connecting a couple of names with the kids. At the balloon station, where I was guarding the balloons, I gave her a balloon when we weren’t supposed to giving balloons out. Then over the next half hour she kept coming up and pretending her balloon was gone (holding it behind her back). I played along with this and she cracked up. She’s not a thumb wrestler and she’s not a high-fiver. If anything, I might have given her a little fist bump yesterday. So, do I use solution 2 and go mostly plutonic, just give first bumps, and keep those germs away?

Solution 3: Learn how to build up my immunities (maybe with essential oils) and pray for protection and discernment to know when and where to give hugs when kids need it? I’m not a big hugger in the first place. But as a dad, I have some empathy and know there will be times when these kids will need a hug.

Please help. I know there are teachers in the trenches, and others out there that can help me address this in a wise way. I don’t want to get sick again like I did back in 1991. I also don’t want to be a stick in the mud and be stand-offish when these little kids are having really rough days. Any ideas are welcome. My iron stomach is having a bad day so far and is making me very open to suggestions. You can comment on the blog post or send me an email at dhowell@tekeffect.net. Thanks!