On our third day in Gujarat, we were in Kutch, and I became extremely sick. For the three days following, I couldn’t eat, I could barley drink and was spending more time in the bathroom than the toilet itself. I probably shouldn’t go into too much detail about my symptoms. Just trust that I wasn’t in good shape.

I drank lots of fluids and tried my best to eat what I could; but, I was still miserable. But, in Radhanpur a few days after I had gotten sick, we had the opportunity to stay in a Jesuit mission and school there. While walking around the campus—my stomach churning and gurgling—the crosses images reminded of my childhood catechism classes. Feeling the worst I had in a long time, I was later reminded of a particular verse:

“These twelve, Jesus sent forth, saying…heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils; freely ye have received, freely give.” –Matthew 10:5a,8

Since my time as a boy in the Lutheran church, I have grown to put very little weight in the words of the Christian bible, grown to lack faith in any religioun, and aged out of my respect for those that call themselves men (or women) of God. However, on the night we first arrived in Radhanpur, I gained a new respect for the words of that passage.

I was brought into the area of the mission where the nuns of the mission taught the young girls, facilitated work programs for local women, and ran a medical clinic. They were kind enough to sit down with me; they asked about my symptoms and felt my forehead; they gave me a few pills to take and sent me on my way with a glass of water. That night I gained a new respect for the aforementioned verse from the book of Matthew not because I suddenly had an epiphany or a new found faith; but because those women, the nuns, had dedicated their lives to those words. They may not be literally “casting out devils” or “raising the dead,” but they were putting words into action. They practice what they preach, and that, I can respect.