God whispers in a school in the jungle - Part 1


                                                                                        

                                         Photo of classrooms at Madina Girls High School, PNG 1973




God, help! Send someone! I prayed.
I’d been healthy nearly all the time I taught in New Ireland.
But that morning I woke to waves of burning heat, tiredness and nausea. The room seemed to reel around me. No way could I get up and teach that day. In fact, I felt so sick I didn’t know how to contact Miss Marchment (aka Mrs Barrington, the headmistress in my novel Lantern Light). I was too weak to walk and there were no phones in our houses.

The high-pitched sound of girls giggling floated across from the oval where they were  assembling.
Where I should be. 
Soon their voices would soar in four-part harmony, singing the PNG national anthem.
Life – exotic island life – was resuming for the day outside. And I lay there feeling miserable.

I groped my way a few steps across the cool wooden floor to the bathroom and then back to bed. Every part of me ached. What a predicament!
God! I kept praying. What could I do? I wobbled badly when I tried again to walk.

Suddenly a loud knock sounded at the door. My friend Peter’s voice called out, “Jeanette, are you in there?” (Peter was a teacher too.)

His brown-bearded face peeped in at the door, which I could just see from my bedroom. 
“I’m here,” I called. He walked into the lounge room.
“How did you know to knock?” I croaked.
“As I approached your house, God gave me an impression of you lying here in bed, sick, all alone.”
“Yes. I do feel sick.”
“I’ll go and get one of the women to come and see you,” he called and hurried away, obviously trying to hide his excitement: God had told him something and he had been used by God to help me.

Soon, “Jeanette!”
Miss Marchment’s cultured English voice sounded concerned. She walked quietly in and checked my temperature with a gentle hand on my forehead. “I think it’s just a virus. Hopefully it's not malaria,” she told me.

Leaving me with a glass of juice beside my bed and instructions to drink as much as I could, she went off to teach. “I’ll bring something easy to eat over for dinner,” she called. “I’ll stay and eat with you.”

My stomach recoiled at the thought of eating but I was glad to sip the juice and go back to sleep.

Fancy God getting through to Peter that I was in here, just when I needed help. After my illness, no doubt we would laugh and rejoice about it.

I drifted in and out of sleep all day, fascinated by the red hibiscus swaying in the breeze against a bright blue sky outside my window. Hearing the soft rustle of its leaves. How beautiful it all was.

But fancy having dinner alone tonight with the elegant, regal Miss Marchment! Was I well enough to sit up at the table? I still found her a bit daunting.

A whisper of peace told me all would be well.
As it turned out, it was much, much better than ‘well’.

Part 2 next week





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