In the first several centuries of Christiany (and even in modern times, though often not publicized) some Christian communites had the hallmark of always being sick. They weren't identified as people who always wore WWJD bracelets or attended every single conference to come through town or be annoying by responding, “I think you meant to say Merry Christmas.” when people use “happy holidays”. The reasons for this was that, as you can imagine, people were diseased a lot (there's a reason life expectancy for much of human history was only 40 years until the last century or so) and the folks that stepped in to care for and minister to the sick were the Christians. They'd not only say, “Let me tell you about Jesus,” they'd also say, “I'll take care of you.” Because of this, it was often these same Christians that would themselves get sick by taking care sick people they were ministering and evangelizing to.
I'm not saying this to try to make myself sound super awesome or martyr-ey in any way, I'm just saying that service (aka worship) can and should involve sacrifice. Even if it's unintended.
OK. Enough prose, cause I'm pretty exhausted. Last week a boy here had a really bad case of diarrhea and was in the hospital. One night he pretty much exploded all over his sheets and clothes. Not a pretty site. While Marta took him to the hospital I spent the morning washing his sheets and clothes and helping clean up his bed. Celso got better, and I got worse.
Based on what we can figure out, I am Patient Zero. However, I was not the first to show symptoms. Christina started feeling sick and spent all day Sunday with diarrhea and vomiting and went to the clinic with Victor on Sunday night when it was clear this was not a normal case of diarrhea. So when I started experiencing all same symptons at about midnight I wasted no time in calling for Victor to come get me to join the party at the clinic.
We figure that Christina had contact with me and only started showing symptoms first because she already was fighting another infection. Because of my contact from helping Celso I was probably the first carrier. What we've got is typhoid-salmonella. Its technical name in English is paratyphoid, which is borne of a strain of salmonella bacteria, but that doesn't mean we're only para-sick or para-miserable. I got discharged only few hours after getting diagnosed and was back home by 5am on Monday with medication, at which point we filled all the kids on to what was happening and started an orphanage-wide cleaning of absolutely everything except the dirt. So far nobody else has gotten sick, so we're very thankful for that.
As for now, I've got just a huge feeling of malaise. I'm exhausted constantly and have a small but nagging stomach discomfort and no appetite, which is bad because I really need to eat a lot. Christina is doing much worse than I and as of now (Tuesday afternoon) they still have her at the clinic under observation. We both could use prayer but especially her as (unless I turn for the worse) she has a longer road to recovery.
What is mildly amusing about the situation is that Sunday night I was talking with friends on skype saying how awesome it has been health-wise because not since my infection in April and the wedding debacle in July have I even had a runny nose. Not two hours later I feel like that dude in Alien as the alien is exploding out of his stomach. Yah, on second thought, not mildly amusing at all.
Thanks for keeping us in prayer and for all the notes of encouragment and especially all my Nampula friends that have been calling/stopping by to check up on me.
I'll try to keep folks updated, but expect content to really slow here till I get better. Caio.
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