Stillness is your Strength.

Burundi Journey Episode 6.

Inhale. Exhale.

We breathe as a daily, moment by moment rhythm. We first exit the mother’s womb and life itself is accredited by it; our first breath. It is involuntary, sustainer of life, breath of life. Anxiety? Panic? State of Overwhelm? We forsake our breath in exchange for mind and in doing so, we forsake the wholeness of ourselves. Breath as prayer, as recognition of life, as appreciation for each moment in time, as significance in time. There is not human life without it. Breath, to be human.

Breath, to be holy. The Jewish Rabbis teaching that YHWH (or Yaweh) as it has been translated to many of us today is reflective of breath. YH, our inhale. WH our exhale. As we breathe, every breath we take, silently or labored, we are saying YHWH. Can you hear it?

Inhale. Exhale.

In Hebrew YHWH means “I AM”. Reflective of God speaking to Moses at the burning bush, “I AM”.

Breath, a substantial need for life. Breath, a tool to deep healing. We think we need to be doing things all the time to be fulfilled, to be satisfied, living to the fullest as we say. But the longer I live I am convinced this is not true. Yes, sometimes we must take action, we must go farther than words, yet many times, that action is stillness. Stillness becomes our strength. For in stillness we take the deep breaths, the long inhales and exhales. The reminders of who we are and what we are made for, the strength of our remembrance, of our remembrance of beloved, our remembrance that we have nothing to prove and nothing to lose. For if God is our everything, than nothing can shatter our souls. The remembrance that light shall always have it’s way and triumph over the darkness. It is not to say that things shall go our way, or that catastrophic circumstances will end as we think they should. However, it is to say that goodness shall come running after us, even in the darkest areas of our lives. That even when we feel weak in every way, our stillness shall become our strength. Our breath our worship, our laying down and slowing down our gift of remembering this life we have graciously lived thus far. Our act of gratitude, our act of love. Our way to embrace and hold dear the reverence of YHWH.

Inhale. Exhale.

We worship. We remember. We learn to love.

And this is what this adoption season has been teaching me. That all the accomplishments in the world mean nothing if I have not learned that love requires sacrifice and within sacrifice I must learn to still. And within stillness I have the honor of breath, of YHWH. And within this time of breath I am whole. And out of wholeness can we courageous and boldly shine our light in ways far beyond that in which we might ever ask or imagine of ourselves. And this too is love. Learning that we have been created to love ourselves and love this world. But it starts with YHWH. It starts in stillness.

Stillness is our strength. Learning to still is how we change the world.

What Have We Done?

December 7, 2021

4:00pm. We continue our journey back towards Bujumbura, the place we currently call ‘home’, our resting place, our nesting place, our place of learning to come together as a family while in Burundi. We are watching Shiloh closely. I can tell she still does not feel great, but she is trying to be “strong” and pretend like nothing is wrong. I want to just cradle her and tell her its ok to cry and not feel ok and let whatever emotions come that need to come. Its okay to not be okay. But I hold her close and let her sleep on my lap and take selfies on my phone as we try to pass the time, longing to just get out of the car, get to the hotel where we can better care for her, have a bed for her to rest, truly rest, away from the people she feels bad inconveniencing who are with us as we journey back towards Bujumbura.

4:15pm. We should be getting close now, making our way into the outskirts of Bujumbura, but instead we come to a stop. No traffic is moving. We are at a standstill. At first, there is no thought of it. There must be something up ahead and soon we will continue to be on our way. You know these slow down points happen in America too. This is no big deal.

5:00pm. We still sit. At this point the heat of the van has risen to a miserable temperature. Yet we cannot get out. It would not be safe here and would cause quite the scene. They are telling us there is some sort of contruction happening and unlike America, there are no “detour” routes. We must wait out their working hours. My heart is wrestless. My patience slowly losing its grip. Can’t everyone see that my girl is trying to hang on in here, but she is not ok?! At this point Shiloh is sitting on Josh’s lap. I can see the discomfort in her eyes. She sips water and goes in and out of trying to sleep, but we all can feel that it is too hot to be able to stay asleep for long. We watch others walking around and talking with other vehicles. Children coming up, selling roasted corn, trying to make some money from the grumbling stomachs of all those perched upon this road, with nowhere to go. We cannot have this though, Modeste, our lawyer says the way it is cooked can make us as Americans sick. So the Burundian children enjoy, and we are happy to get something into them and we sweat and try to stretch the thinning patience we bear.

6:00pm We are moving again. We discovered a large glass bottle truck had toppled over and blocked the roadway completely. It took much effort to get it out of the way enough to begin allowing alternating traffic to navigate around it and be able to cross over a bridge. Now traffic to get into Bujumbura is in full on rush hour mode. It does not let up. We weave in and our of cars, try different routes, all in effort to get to the area we need to get to, to get back to our temporary home. But the lines seem to never end. What took us 20 min to get out of the city now takes close to an hour and a half to reach our destination.

7:30pm We arrive back to the hotel! I don’t think any of us had exited that vehicle so quickly on this trip thus far. Although the sights and excursions were amazing, nothing makes it feel worth it when your child is not well. We get back to the room, and Shiloh crashes on the bed. We want to give her body time to cool off from the heat of the van, the heat of being all clustered together for the majority of the day, because she is BURNING up. I keep telling myself, she just needs time to rest, to cool off from the journey of the day. Josh stays with the kids in the room while I head to the hotel restaurant for food. We have decided to just order sambosas and white rice for the evening, a sprite for me to settle the nerves and we are hopeful that getting something mild into Shiloh’s stomach will help. We have not eaten well all day and she must be hungry.

8:30pm Food takes a while to come here. And although I have ordered one of the simplest and fastest orders we know, I am still actually surprised to be returning to the room within an hour. Thomas and Theresia scarf down some food, both rightfully so, hungry after the day we have encountered. Shiloh won’t touch a bite. Now I KNOW something is not right. If you know Shiloh than you know food is her favorite thing! Last year for her birthday she told me all she wanted was to be able to go to a restaurant and eat “fancy food”. :) Food is such a savory space of goodness for her. And don’t I know, because she is so much like me. We won’t necessarily eat a large meal, but we shall snack all day long! But not today. She had not touched anything since our simple bread lunch, which for her was still to be lacking. Her forehead, burning hot. I brought an entire first aide kit, I knew I had to find our thermometer and see where her temperature was at.

9:00pm. I searched our room high and low and there is NO thermometer to be found. How could I bring our entire first aide kit, complete with stomach medicines and fever reducers and gauze and hydrogen peroxide and alcohol pads and Neosporin. You know, all the goods, EXCEPT the thermometer?! I was beginning to internally panic. We had already given her children’s Tylenol at this point. There was no denying she had a fever, the problem was how warm was she? We got on our knees to pray, not knowing what else to do. Our girl is sick in a country where we do not speak the language. In the poorest country in the world. We brought her here. What have we done?

10:00pm. Everyone is asleep now. Everyone but me. Maybe Josh too. For how can one sleep when their child is burning up beside them? I toss and I turn and I feel her forehead. She is not cooling down. She is still burning up. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?

December 8, 2021

3:00am. Shiloh is moaning now. She feels so uncomfortable . We have given the medicine more than enough time to take effect and it has not done anything for her. She is ravaging, rolling in discomfort. I head to the front desk, desperate to see if we might be able to borrow their thermometer, because the good thing about Covid is that everyone now has a thermometer. Everyone except us that is… We had regularly experienced temperature checks upon arrival. But the front desk is closed. No one is there. Lights are out. It is pitch dark everywhere. We are out of luck. I weep my way back to our room and tell Josh the news. We try calling our lawyer, our connection in the city, because at this point we think we need to go to the hospital. I reach out to a dear friend of mine, because the good thing about Burundi being 8 hours ahead and it being the middle of the night is that America is still awake. Her husband is a Dr and I am desperate to know what to do, anything to DO. For how can I sit and do nothing and watch my girl suffer so? She agrees we need to try and get to a hospital. But we can get no one on the phone. We text and we call, but all of our local connections are fast asleep, as would be expected for 3am. I know the front desk is open at 6am. Lord please get us through the next 3 hours. Please get us help. Please help us. Its all I can mutter as I pace our room. Please help us.

6:00am. I arrive at the front desk on the dot. Upon arriving I cannot even speak. The tears well over and I am sobbing. Concerned, the front desk staff member leans in. In an act of comfort rests his hand gently upon my forearm resting on the counter. “My daughter,” I squeak out. “So sick. May need ambulance. Thermometer. Hot. She is so hot. We need thermometer.” I am doing hand motions because some staff have minimal English and I don’t know how anyone might understand me through all these tears anyways. But Vianney understands. He has been our Bellhop. We met him with Modeste at the airport and he helped us first settle in. We see him daily and we know he is compassion. We know he embodies love. I turn, not recognizing until that moment in time he had approached, but thankful to have a familiar face at my side now. I simply weep “Shiloh. So sick. Thermometer.” He takes off running, I know he understands. I know he feels the gravity of it all. And even in that moment where I feel as if time could not be moving more slowly, I still feel as if he had to have been back in less than 3 minutes. We run together to our room. He knows exactly where to go since he has so graciously helped us so many times thus far on our trip. We have been in Burundi for 2.5 weeks now. We are only a few days shy of our travel to Kenya. Yet here we are, in a terror of health spiraling down.

6:15am. Vianney stays with us as we take Shiloh’s temperature. She is 39.4 degrees Celsius. That is a 103.03 Degree fever. My body shakes. She has never had a fever this high. Vianney confirms this is not good. He tells me he will immediately call for a doctor. They have a doctor who works with the hotel. They will get him on the phone and get him to come now. I am grateful. Grateful for this care. Grateful we do not have to succumb her to another car ride in her current state. Grateful selfishly not to expose her to the hospital as cover cases are currently rising in country and we have to test in 36 hours for our own ability to leave the county in just 3 days.

9:30am. The doctor arrives with a couple of nurses too. They draw blood, take her temperature again, which has remained high. They tell us to keep offering water and Tylenol and say they will get lab results to us soon, within a few hours. I am so grateful for their kindness. For genuinely they are with us for over an hour. They agree her fever is much too high. We all fear it is malaria. Shiloh’s misery remains.

3pm. As most medical things go, we hear no answer quickly and my hope is deteriorating . Shiloh is too miserable to get anything down. I am fearing her dehydration at this point more than anything else. The fever still pressing in with all its got. I have never seen her like this. Never seen her this sick before. And I can feel myself on the verge of my own mental breakdown. Anxiety knocking on my door. Shame tearing away at me. How could we risk her life for this? And yet, my dear friend, knowing what is happening as we stay in touch knowns my mind before I speak it or type it: “And Laura, don’t you dare begin to question bringing your kids on this trip. Do you hear me? You were supposed to bring Shiloh and Thomas. That was confirmed before you left the states. It is important that you were there TOGETHER as a FAMILY to get Theresia. Shiloh is supposed to be in Burundi with you. You made the right decision to bring them. Don’t you question that. God has got her. And though the fire is raging He sees you and He sees her and He will carry you through this storm. He will carry you through and I will not stop praying.” More weeping spilled over as she spoke to the exact shame all over my heart. For as mothers we long to comfort and take care of our children. To watch them suffer is immensely painful. And to be genuinely concerned for her life…. Well it makes you question everything. I will myself to continually quote Psalm 34:7: “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him; and He delivers them”. This has been the verse, the chapter really that I feel the Lord has used to carry us through the wilderness season of the adoption journey. And here we were yet again, crying our for deliverance, for life, for healing and for tender mercies to overcome the illness.

4pm. We receive her blood results. No Malaria. We are relieved. But, it does confirm some sort of serious infection in her body. They are not sure what it is, but the doctor is on his way back to the hotel. They are bringing medication now and a shot. A shot that is a fever reducer. They know her fever needs to come down and we need to get it down quickly. It has been over 24 hours now of it sucking all the life out of Shiloh.

5pm. Our doctor arrives. Praise the Lord. And even further, her fever has actually dropped to 102.7, almost 103, but to such it has dropped just low enough that they cannot give the shot. Shiloh is relieved and I am relieved that we at least have movement in the right direction even though the fever is still high. It takes us maybe a full 10 min to get Shiloh’s first dose of medication in. We have to continually beg to get her to take in the tiniest amounts, but the first dose has been given. And now we try to rest and pray that we have taken the right course.

8pm. Shiloh is sleeping soundly now, I am encouraged and slightly hopeful. What a wild day and a half it has been and my fears are still wild in my mind. But at least we have confirmed no malaria and we pray this medication is right for her. She has kept it down and for that I am so thankful. I continue to pray for deliverance. And in my exhaustion I too, finally fall asleep for a bit.

December 9, 2021

12am. My alarm awakes me. It is time for Shiloh’s next dose of medicine. We have a thermometer of our own now, praise the Lord!! Her temp is still well over 100 deg farenheight, but Shiloh too slept soundly for a bit. It again takes quite a while to get the medicine in, but we get it down, and she falls back asleep, her body working so hard to fight this thing within her.

4am. Shiloh is awake, but she slightly smiles. It is the first smile I have seen in almost 2 days. I don’t feel good mama, but I do think I feel better than I did. Her fever closer to 100 now. We are declining, praise God!

11am. Unfortunately even after the last couple of days we have had, today is Covid testing day. We have to get out and get tested to be able to be within the window to board our flight to Kenya in two short days. I could tell the entire way Shiloh wasn’t feeling great, but she made it through. Never had we been so thankful for a simple throat swab test instead of the nasal one that hurts.

8pm. We pass the rest of the day with iPads and quiet play with the other two. We survive another day. We are getting a few more fluids in her now. And, her fever has now BROKEN!!! Within 24 hours of this antibiotic her fever has come down. It’s working!!

December 10, 2021

Today was a day for packing and gathering the final things, for tomorrow we fly out to Kenya. All of our Covid results come in, and we are all negative. And that final evening, that final night in Burundi, God brought us just the gift we needed; wild hippos in the waters just outside of our dining room. Josh had been waiting the entire trip to see hippos, outside of the guided tours we had been on to experience them. But this time, it was just us, with our friends who we got to enjoy dinner with each evening, and there they were, the most beautiful hippos I had ever seen, one even yawning for us. And, as I stood there, Shiloh close beside me, lighting up and smiling with the rest of us at the amazement before our eyes, I smiled deep in my soul. Our girl was returning to us. She was returning to the wonder she sees in the world wherever she goes, returning to her love of animals and love of life. She still would need several more days to really recover, but what a testimony to the quickness of recovery she was experiencing verses the state she was in. From darkness to light.

And in the stillness I found the strength I would need to face the next battle up ahead. For Kenya was coming, and we had yet to know all that was about to go down in Kenya. But, here we stood, in beautiful stillness. The tenderness of God to draw us back to nature, to creation, to life before our next challenge.
The reminder that YHWH was with us, within us, within each breath, within each echo of our cries. For within the stillness of our days and the misery of the unknown, we found the strength to believe that this too was to be a part of our story. For in the stillness we found the strength, the audacity to hope. Oh what a gift!

Praying that you are met with the stillness of your own heartbeat this evening. Stillness of your own YHWH breath. Stillness of your own:

Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale Exhale.

Moment this evening.

Life is surely too short to miss the extraordinary gift of presence. Thank you for being present with me and my family here in this space.

I will see you soon then as we prepare to make our way onwards into Kenya!

With all the love I have, pretending you are right here in the room with me as we have just had this heart to heart moment, tears in eyes, tea in hands, moments held in presence. You are deeply loved and deeply beloved. Never forget the power and impact of deeply listening. It matters more than you know. So thank you for listening to this story we have walked. I do not take your presence lightly.

~Laura

Have you missed any of the journey thus far? You can catch up here:

Episode 1. Back to the Beginning: https://www.lauradugglebyphotography.com/blog/2022/2/26/back-to-the-beginning

Episode 2. Heartbeats from Heaven: https://www.lauradugglebyphotography.com/blog/2022/3/9/heartbeats-from-heaven

Episode 3. Harvest Days: https://www.lauradugglebyphotography.com/blog/2022/3/16/harvest-days

Episode 4. Moon Miracles: https://www.lauradugglebyphotography.com/blog/2022/3/29/first-signs-of-struggle

Episode 5. The Journey East to Waterfalls. https://www.lauradugglebyphotography.com/blog/2022/4/6/the-journey-south-to-waterfalls