Out of a Man's Mouth

The other day the machine for my radiation treatment broke. There I was, buckled to the table... and they all left the room... like usual. Then the machine made it's usual "zzzttt" sound. But then it flashed a scary white light that I could see behind my shut eyeballs. It flashed six times the whole treatment. It scared me. I tried to think of a verse I could pray and stand on. I settled on Jesus' declaration that it isn't that which goes into your mouth that defiles you, but that which comes out of your mouth. Best I could come up with for potentially too much radiation.... I claimed that verse, and trusted God's goodness. I don't think I have and repercussions from it...

That reminds me of a time I stood on that verse in the Dominican Republic. I wanted to live there forever. So the pastor of the church told the people, "No one speak any English to Denise, only Spanish." Well, I learned Spanish pretty quickly.  I could understand 80 % of what they were saying, really quickly. Came home almost fluent...

There was this orphanage that the church helped with, and I went there to help with the children one day. I went there with one other woman from the church. She only spoke Spanish, but I was coming along just fine communicating and speaking. I had been told not to eat or drink anything from the orphanage, my system wouldn't be used to the potential bad things. Fine, I drank nothing... knowing when the children napped, we'd eat and drink...

We put the children down for a nap. The childrens' playroom smelled so badly of pee. I decided that while they were sleeping, I would try and make it nicer (breathable). While I was mopping, the other woman came in, with what looked like a Door County Cooler. Maybe now I would say it looked like a small bottle of juice, with a cute outdoorsy scene on the label. She said," Here, take this." Thinking she was offering me her juice I say "Oh no. I'm fine." That was a lie. I was dying of thirst, but trying to be cross culturally polite..you know? She said. "No take it. It will get rid of the flies." I understood her well. Again, crossing cultures can be tricky. I thought she meant, "This is sitting around attracting flies." Ok, sounded like she was offering it to me. I took it and glugged it down.

I began to suspect that maybe we'd miscommunicated. Oddly, a little "poison alarm" started going off in my head. I had drunk the cute bottle. I spewed what was in my mouth, saying in (worthless) English "What is this?" Oh my goodness! She came rushing in! "Did I take it?", She asked. "Yes" No emergency services (besides a phone chat with a pharmacy tech...). Oh that woman was panicked and mad!  I stood on the verse and trusted. Nothing bad happened. I knew I had drunk something bad wasn't sure what, but just stood on a promise.

A few weeks later, I went on a trip with missionaries. They said, " We heard you drank turpentine." Oh. Is that what it was? It did taste bad. It isn't that which goes into my mouth that defiles me, but that which comes out...