I started writing this Monday afternoon. It’s been a very long time since I made a concerted effort to write, and I was proud of myself. Despite the typically unbearable heat of October I was winning. Ray was spending a much anticipated afternoon at the office. Willa was asleep. Cricket was asleep. Two children peaceful in the midst of a healthy nap?!? At the same time!!!! Definitely winning.

Then I stared at the blank paper in front of me, nothing coming. Eventually I wrote some dribble about how the weather here never changes and we only know the year is progressing because social media pictures tell us it is, but my heart wasn’t in it. I took a sip of coffee and decided to put that aside in favor of sending Brian a text celebrating the sleep and health currently filling our quiet home.

Shortly after, oh so shortly, Brian walked in carrying a blazing hot Ray in his arms. She was fine, and then she wasn’t. It was the third round of this weirdness in less than two weeks. The second fever, last Thursday night, didn’t tip us off to malaria because the cycles were too far apart. We considered it, discounted it, and watched. Her fever broke by Friday morning and she was bouncing around as her usual self. But three oddball fevers are too much and we began seriously considering it. The private doctor had already gone home for the day, but the nurse at the chemist was still around. After minimal discussion, Brian scooped Ray back up and headed that way. After a frustrating hour, they ended up home again with no progress made. Ray clung to him until we finished setting up the sick room, and then fell into her pillow crying quietly over her situation.

That fever didn’t break like the other two. It hung onto her, driving me crazy with my innate fever panic. In the morning we took Ray to the private doctor as soon as we could. She’s now fighting the good fight against malaria, her body is responding well to the medication.

The past two days I’ve been overwhelmed by two things: my own anxiety and God’s steadfastness. I crumple when the kids get sick, ceasing to function well. I stare at them obsessively checking their temperature on the off chance it broke in the last 30 seconds. I think of the worst despite Brian’s best attempts to remind me to look for the horses, not the zebras. Though malaria would be a zebra in the States, it’s a horse here. And it’s infinitely preferable to most other options, being easy to treat. As I became more certain she was ailing from a difficult and strange tropical disease, he kept saying it must be easy-to-treat malaria. On top of Ray’s raging fever we’ve hit the brutally hot days and I loathed the thought of her fighting any level of sick in it. But then comes in the steadfastness and care of our Father. Because of someone else’s generosity we were able to install solar panels which meant I never feared the fans randomly stopping. Even better than that the solar panels are allowing us to spend these feverish days in the room with AC, cuddled up together in the sometimes too cold room (when the aches and pains allow for it)! Battling malaria in the tropical heat is misery. Watching your child battle it is immeasurably worse. The simple ability to give her a comfortable environment in which to wage her fight, limiting the battle to the internal and not the external, has been priceless. We have felt so many benefits from the panels, but this has by far been the most incredible.

Today will be our last day of AC and movies, praise God!! She’s on the other side of this, even trying to dance during “The Greatest Showman” (though immediately regretting the attempt). We hope she doesn’t remember the discomfort of the illness, but instead remembers how God cared for her inside of it.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday (when we were all healthy), today (when crud came), and forever (whatever that holds). Hebrews 13:8

The truth of that steadfastness has been shining brightly through our Ray, darkened momentarily by clouds of ill health.