7-18-08

10pm
El Salvador

I was really tired when I woke up because I stayed up late talking on the phone with my mom and my friend Danny. I fell asleep at the Casona after breakfast again. I seem to always fall asleep at the Casona. All of a sudden I was woken up and rushed to the bus in a daze. I reached for something on the bus and my hand felt really strange. I looked at it and my left ring finger was as fat as my thumb and red.
I got Kristal because she’s sort of the doctor and she gave me a Benedril because we assumed that it was an allergic reaction to some sort of bug bite. About thirty minutes later the swelling was worse and I couldn’t feel my finger. She gave a small white pill and some cream to put on it.
The combination of medications made me extremely drowsy. I made it through one program and fell asleep on the bus. Apparently I slept through a whole program and a thirty minute bus ride. When I did wake up, the bus was shaking severely and it was completely empty.
I sat up and looked out the window and saw literally over a thousand people around the bus. Then I realized there were people on top of the bus. I sat dazed for a moment, still heavily medicated until I realized what was happening. They were doing a program on top of the bus.
I got off the bus, still confused, and stepped out into the crowd towards one of my leaders. A man came up to me and asked me to marry him as he handed me a headless chicken. I thought I had gone insane. My leader sent me back onto the bus as she took the chicken from me.
I looked out the window again and most of the people in the crowd were holding headless chickens. It was the weirdest thing. They’re getting ready to elect and new leader and one of the guys was promoting himself by handing out headless chickens to his voters or something of the sort, I’m still not quit sure.
I fell asleep again and woke up for the next program. I didn’t have enough energy or sanity to dance so I stayed on the bus and prayed. One thing that we’ve been doing is splitting up into two different teams. One team will stay one the bus and pray as the other team does the program.
At our last program my team was supposed to stay on and pray, so I remained on the bus once again. I was praying over the program and stopped to look around because it was all to quiet on the “prayer” bus. One girl was sleeping, one was listening to her I-pod, one guy was putting anti-itch cream on his bug bites and some people were looking out the window watching the program.
There were only two other people actually praying with me. I broke. I told them we had to keep fighting and interceding for the lost and that we couldn’t give up and give into the distractions.
Everyone prayed for about ten minutes and then soon returned to what they were previously doing. I was disappointed. I began to cry and pray over my team. I prayed for our passion and burden to be renewed. I prayed that we would remember why we are here. I prayed that we wouldn’t slack off just because it’s our last week here, but for us to give more effort and I prayed for our unity.
I was weeping by the time everyone else got back on the bus. Liz asked what was on my mind, so I told her that I felt like we had lost our passion, our fire and desire, like we were getting lazy. It’s heartbreaking.
She began to tell me that we were tired and that it was bound to happen, but not to focus on what’s wrong with the team but to stay passionate as an individual and to inspire them by action. My heart still aches. We’re fasting together tomorrow. Hopefully that will spark that kindling flame and renew the sense of unity.