Allie…

So I was gonna put this in my “sick” post, but it was getting really long and I figured people would rather read 2 kinda long ones then 1 forever long one…
I wanted to share about how being sick this time, after India, is going to be different from before India sicknesses. Well, in India everyone but Tim and Sarah got sick at least once and had to stay back from VBS that/those day(s). So when Allie got sick, we figured she’d get better pretty soon and everything. A lot of the time in India, I was with Allie, getting to know her better and sometimes sharing my life with her. So when she fell sick, I was pretty bummed, who would I sit with on the bus with headaches?! 😉 I was pretty sad, but we were so busy it wasn’t too bad. Anyway…I went to visit Al quite a few times, seeing how she was and everything. But what I expected from her, was waaay different from what I saw. I expected a complaining, homesick, possibly crying, sleeping, straight up GRUMP. I thought I’d go in, ask if she needed anything, then leave her alone. BUT, when I went in, she was laughing!! Part of the time she was sick she hung out with Aunt Janet because they were both kinda lonely and both sick. Allie wasn’t grumpy, didn’t act upset and always always pasted a smile on her face…That so made an impression on me. She was constantly happy, even when she wasn’t happy. She never complained with the exception of taking “The Green Pill”…haha. But I realized how Allie wasn’t complaining, upset or having a pity party about being upset. So that was such and example to me, I’m going to work on that while I’M sick too…
Allie was good for more then a smile though. I mean, we all loved her joy, even when she didn’t wanna be joyful or smile or be happy. But Allie was more then just happiness. Al was an example of humility, leadership and a true friend.
Her humility was shown through many many different situations. Sometimes it was when I was sharing something or we were talking about our lives. She’d flat out tell me “this is what i did, here’s why it was wrong, please don’t do it.” That was really cool the way she didn’t hold like anything back, she just would tell it as it was and that was really honorable.
Speaking of telling it like it is, she would so do that for me. And it wasn’t in a pushy way and it wasn’t like “here, now go away.” She’d tell me the honest-to-goodness-truth, then help me understand and accept it. I really appreciated someone being frank and telling me what was really going on in me and how I need to fix it.
Leadership. Allie was an awesome example of leadership. She didn’t cross over the lines and take over the guys that were really leading and didn’t step too far and try to be a leader of the whole team. But, as a recent HS graduate, she was an amazing leader. Before we even left she talked to us girls and was telling us how the she was talking to some of the guys and they were telling her that they really really wanna work on like serving us and being leaders. So Al stepped up and told us girls what the guys had told her. She asked us to look for ways to thank them and point out God’s grace in their lives. She also wanted to remind us to be humble and LET them serve us (which actually wasn’t toooo easy). Oh, I def wanna throw in that the guys did an AMAZING job of serving and of really really being leaders. They did everything you could imagine to serve us. But that is for an entirely different post.
And the last thing I mentioned, a true friend. I saw her go through conflicts and I saw her handle them. It was really neat to watch her. She knew she wasn’t perfect and she knew that she doesn’t handle everything right. When she messed up, she’d go back and apologize for that. Something I can definitely grow in. She was there for people and never turned them down. One night after she’d just gotten over being sick I asked her if I could talk to her. She knew it was kind of important and was open to talking. The thing is, I know she was tired. She was falling asleep before I asked her and she still said ok. We sat on the hot, dirty, and quite uncomfortable chairs for a while and she listened, then responded then helped tell me what I need to do to make things right.
Another story was when we were on our way back from Bharuch (I’m not sure how to spell that one…), the city where the teaching team had been, we sat together…Well we got talking and I said something that made her wonder about the background of that…So she started asking questions and probing my heart. She worked and worked and worked. I wasn’t the easiest person for her to work through something with. But she continued even when I didn’t want to. She wouldn’t let me lie about anything or keep any of it to myself. Even after the like 5 hr bus ride she came inside and finished what we started…I couldn’t believe she’d care that much to spend a bunch of time working through something ‘small’ with me…That was quite an example of what I should be doing with my own friends, ect.
Anyway, I just wanted to share how I saw God working in Allie’s life as we spent 2 weeks in India together. So ily Al and thanks for everything you did for me and others on this trip…it was only by you relying on God that all the things said could’ve been possible…so thanks…