The Longest Night

I've thought hard about blogging today, and it has been a battle in my mind. Do I write about things that make me want to pack up and go home? or is it better to keep those things secret - only to share with a few of you via email? Well, obviously I've opted to write about it. I will apologize now for the length. If you attend Lamar Baptist in Arlington, you may remember the Sunday evening service when we spoke. I spoke about how I'm a chicken at heart. Yesterday that was evident even more then when I was chased upon a chair by a wee mouse. :)

This is our house, you can use the picture for reference to better appreciate the story...

Yesterday evening, around 6:30pm, I was walking down the hall and happened to see something in the hall window sill. In the picture that would be the 2nd window from the right. I looked closer to see 2 little eyes staring at me. It was either a rat or a huge mouse! It was trapped between a closed window and a screen. (the other side of the window was open - there are two individual windows that make one big window) Calmly (this was the only time I was calm), I went and found Joel who was busy with milking. I wasn't leaving it there any longer than necessary..so I sent for James, the 14 year old boy who lives here. He came with a towel because he was just going to stick his hand in and pick it up. He hopped up so he could reach in to grab it and quickly jumped down and said he'll wait for his dad. Now that made me feel validated in my fears, so even though my heart was beginning to sink inside of me - I was affirmed.

Richard, James' dad, came and decided to go into the house and get it. I was very clear in letting him know I did not want that rat lose in my house. So I switched the hall lights on for him and instantly see him running back towards me! The rat had gone out the window - which was good but I really wanted it dead.

Now if you look at the picture of the house, you'll notice there is a triangular storage space beneath the stairs. The rat found that to be a good hiding space, but as it was running towards it...I was at the top of the stairs. I'm sure it was a hilarious sight to see a grown women in an orange skirt jump up and straddle the stair railing. I had the most difficult time getting my feet to get a good grip. I thought it could not get any worse than this.

Well, the mouse ran back the way it came - mind you, there is a grown man and 2 boys chasing it with sticks. I was doing much better because I was now at the far end of the porch (towards the left hand side of the picture) - standing on the railing of course. The rat returns to the storage space and Richard asks for a flash light. Joel is now chuckling to himself about the way I'm handling the situation and tells me to put a towel by the front door so just in case it comes onto the porch, it won't get into the house. This sounded good to me, so I go inside for both purposes. I come back with a flashlight in my hand to see the rat flying up the stairs towards me! I closed the door and shook it with all my might so the noise would scare it away from me. I thought my heart would pound out of my chest or I would just pass out right then!

Amazingly, William and James killed it with their sticks out by the car. I was so grateful but still a bit on edge for the rest of the evening. THEN...I'm resting in bed all ready to go to sleep while Joel is in the bathroom. All of a sudden I hear him make a strange yelp-type of noise. It wasn't a sound I've heard from him before and I didn't respond very quickly until he came out saying there was a mouse, hopefully, or something that ran into a crawl space by our bathtub. (we have this open space where you could fix the bathtub pipes if necessary) I went and put some glue on a piece of cardboard while Joel stood guard. We didn't want "it" lose in the house at all. So we got the glue in place and put towels under the door to fill the gap - just in case it didn't get in the glue.

We could hear the rodent moving and running and scratching. It was awful. I sat down and thought "This is it! I want to go home! This is not funny." I knew somewhere down the road I would think, "I left Africa because of 2 rats", but that was okay with me. I suggested to Joel that we call our teammates up the hill and see if we could spend the night with them, but he said "no". While we were waiting to hear if the noises were still moving around the bathroom or not, I heard Dade coughing very forcefully - almost retching. Sure enough, he had thrown up all over his mosquito net and bedding and was in the bathroom vomiting all of his dinner. The boy is so tough, but it was a mess to clean.

Dara was not about to let Dade sleep with her (I can't blame her) and I didn't want to sleep in the room next to the rat. So, I slept with Dade in their room while Dara slept with Joel. I think Dara's the only one who thought it was a good night's sleep. Dade proceeded to be sick throughout the night. After looking at the symptoms, I blame an amoeba named giardia for his sickness. He's moving about but not eating today.

This morning Joel and Richard went into the bathroom to find the rat(!!!) glued to the floor but alive. The glue is not easy to get off the floor, but worth the mess to have the rat confined. It was over...but I'm still nervous walking around and will probably not get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom.

I hope you can follow all that I've written. It's a long story, but it was somehow therapeutic to write it all out. Thanks. I know it's gross, and I also know I'm not going home because of it all. I told Joel that I felt that "rats" crossed the line of "taking up my cross". He understood but didn't quite agree - thankfully.

All this is to say that I'm still a chicken and I'm not sure I want any of you to pray that God will help me in this way. That translates into more rats or even worse - snakes. So just pray I will have strength for the day and grow in the Lord. That covers everything, but not so specifically - if that makes sense. Thanks for all of your support and prayers. Thank you for holding our ropes. We know we're not slipping even if it may feel like it for a day.