"So... I can... eat again?!"

"We got your allergy tests back." my dad said as he glanced at me through the front mirror.
Instantly my heart did flip-flops and a cold chill of nervousness rushed over my body. Before I could respond, my dad told me he wouldn't tell me the results until we got to the house and he had showed and talked it over with my mom.

Okay, so maybe I should back-track a little:
 As you may know from a previous post, I became allergic to a LOT of things. I took the test in February and it said I was allergic to: Dairy (the highest), wheat, soy, gluten, rice, sunflower seed, papaya, orange, almonds, buckwheat, wheat, eggs, walnuts, peanuts, and tea. Yep, basically everything. Anyway, since then I have tried to completely avoid any of those foods. Do you know how hard that is? Indescribably difficult. Besides the difficulty of finding gluten free, dairy free, nut free, rice free, ect., did you know that almost everything is cooked in soy oil (and here, sunflower oil) or has soy lectin in it? Most Gluten-free products are made with rice, but I couldn't eat that either. On top of that, all the labels here are in Chinese, of course! These eight months I just had to eat at home, bring my own food everywhere, or/and just watch others eat. That is difficult in Taiwan where everyone eats out.  I kind of got used to people eating yummy food that I couldn't in front of me, but it was still hard.
A couple months ago we found out more about my allergies. I will try and explain the best I can: I got this bacteria called Candida (yeast) that ate holes in my stomach lining. This resulted in all my food going into my bloodstream. This made my body react to the food as an allergy. 
So, while we were in the states, we got a bunch of pro-biotics and other "stuff" to heal my gut. I also started juicing once a month.
Because of all this, I was doing a lot better; only breaking out in hives every now and then. But suddenly, I started getting them more frequently and we couldn't understand why. We were worried I was gaining new allergies (which kind of freaked us out).  About this time, we found out that Candida grows on sugar.
My parents decided to put me on an extreme diet for a month and then I would get retested. The diet consisted of: raw vegetables, quinoa, the few nuts and oil I could eat (and seasonings and stuff). I couldn't have sugar, fruit, or carbs (except for a cup of beans a day so I didn't shrivel into a twig :p). In fact, my mom was constantly worried about me losing weight; especially since we run a lot (training for a 1/2 marathon). I wasn't allowed to run and had to walk if I was under 108 lbs / 48 kg (which was the case a lot of the time; but I was still able to keep up when I could run, thankfully).

That last month was horrible. I had such intense cravings for anything sweet (an apple sounded heavenly). I mostly ate salad and nuts.  "And I thought my old diet was bad" I remember thinking to myself. I survived and God helped through. After the month was finally up, we went back to the clinic where I got my blood taken and was told I would get the results in two weeks.
Another thing we decided to do was have an anointing service for me. It was really special. After church, (a couple days before my re-testing)  the elders laid their hands on me, prayed, and anointed me. I felt peace in my heart. I knew that we had done everything we could and that it was in God's hands now. I knew many people were praying for me.

Two agonizingly-long weeks later, my dad told me he got my results, as I mentioned in the beginning.  My dad pulled up to our house, and we all hopped out of the car. I went to my room and my parents to theirs.
"O, God," I prayed. "I'm so nervous! What if I'm still allergic to everything? What will I do? It's so hard to eat and live like this. Please let the report be good. I know You can. I have believe in You, 'Help my unbelief." Most importantly though, let Your will be done."
I decided that even if the results were bad, I would just see it as God's will for me and I would survive. He could help through.
Eventually, my parents called me into their room. I could hardly bear the suspense as I slowly walked into their bedroom. I braced myself, as I waited for them to tell me the news.
"Your allergies are so much better! There are only a few things on here and you have no more high allergies!"
I sighed with relief and plopped onto their bed. "Thank-you, God!" I whispered.
My mom then proceeded to explain that I still need to be gluten-free, and mostly vegan but there were so many more things I could eat!
"So, I can like, almost eat like a normal person again?!"
"Yes!"
I don't know why, but my eyes started filling.
"I'm just... so overwhelmed! I can.. I can eat again!" I laughed through my misting eyes.
"Yes, you can eat again, Enjoli. You just have to be careful to rotate everything and only eat these certain things sparingly and you should be fine" my mom repeated as she and my dad gave me a hug.
Walking into the kitchen, I turned to my parents, "I just can't believe it! I can eat again! But I forgot how to eat... You're going to have to teach me how to eat like a normal person again!" I laughed.
That night I hardly slept a wink, thinking about food, haha! I am definitely more thankful for food than I ever have been in my life. I will never take food for granted again. I repeatedly thanked God for answering my prayer that night. How good, loving, and kind our God is!

Flooded!

"I found another drip!" I hollered to my dad as I examined the water dripping onto the floor with my flashlight.
My dad shook his head as he scrounged around the kitchen for another pot. "Every time I turn around, there's another leak!"
We were in another Typhoon with no electricity, and water was seeping through our ceiling. This typhoon wasn't as strong as the previous one, yet for some reason our house was leaking water everywhere! We had an assortment of pots, pans, towels, and rags all over the floor.
"Maybe you should go up to the apartment above and see what's happening." my mom suggested.
The wind subsided for a moment, my dad quickly ran upstairs. Even though the wind wasn't too strong, we all still prayed that he'd be safe as he went upstairs to talk to our neighbors.
Finally, he stepped in the door. "They're not home."
"No wonder our house is leaking everywhere. They probably have a window open letting all the water in their apartment." my mom sighed as we all sat on the couch in the living room. We were at a loss of what to do.
I flashed my light around the room, staring at the many brown streaks of water, the puddles everywhere, and the ceiling in the dining room. We were all starting to get quite worried about it. The ceiling was starting to droop and water was almost pouring out of it. It look like it could collapse at any moment.
Finally, my parents broke the silence.
"Well, you girls can probably go to bed. We're going to have to get up on the hour to empty all these pots and trash bins so our house doesn't completely flood."
We said another prayer together, then tried to get some sleep.
Being a light sleeper, knowing that the ceiling could collapse, and random drops of water on my face made it very difficult to sleep.
"Just keep us safe, Lord." I prayed.
It was a crazy night. I woke up many times during the night. Once I woke up to a huge 'CRASH!' I stepped over the small lake forming in front of my door to find out what had happened.
"The Chandelier fell and broke." my dad explained. He was sweeping the glass up. I noticed that the ceiling was lower, and there were even more drips and leaks everywhere.

Finally, morning came bringing the beautiful sunlight. We thanked God for keeping us safe and that the ceiling hadn't collapsed on us. The typhoon was gone! The sun was out! But our house was flooded...
My mom walked over to school in the morning and recruited some help. We didn't know what to do. We were worried about water damage and we knew we needed to pack our stuff. But where would we stay? Would we permanently move out?
The owner of the apartment above us came and found his whole floor covered in about 2-3 inches of water, which explained our situation. His and our apartments were the only ones damaged though.
The school found us a hotel so we packed some stuff and moved into the hotel and stayed in it for about a week.
The owner of our house came to look at it and talked with us.
"Yes, yes, this needs to be fixed. But this is not too bad, and we can just paint over this..." she said as she observed our home.
We knew that it was not safe to live in anymore, especially since our landlord didn't want to even make all the necessary repairs. So, we had less than a week to find a house.
What a crazy week it was! We all had to still go to school on top of trying to find a house, and packing our stuff at our old apartment.
Towards the end of the week, my dad found this super nice, big apartment that was owned by a former staff of our school.
I don't know why, but I just had this distinct feeling that it was all going to work out and that God would give us this apartment.
So, Saturday night we went to look at it. It was huge, beautiful, and in the perfect location! Long story short, the land-owner was super kind and generous, loaned us furniture from her own storage, and we were moving in four days later!

No one else that we knew were really affected by the typhoon, so why were we the unlucky ones to have our house flood? Well, maybe God just wanted us to move so we could have a nicer, bigger house closer to the city. Now we can do more outreach activities in our home. Plus, God taught me something. Many times when bad things happen to us in life, we are tempted to get all upset, blame God, and get all stressed out. But, God is in charge and He can handle anything. We weren't too stressed because we knew God was in control and he would work everything out for good, and He did!