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Panoramic photo of a nearby beach. Simply amazing!
I’m glad to be back home, but Cape Town is an amazingly beautiful place where I could stay for a long time. Not having my family there made it completely boring though. I was expecting to have to stay there longer, but thankfully the healthcare system in South Africa is amazing and the Doctor had everything planned for me ahead of time.
Selfie at the Hospital
I left Nigeria on a Monday, arrived in South Africa on Tuesday, and saw the Doctor for the first time on Wednesday. He planned for me to be admitted to the hospital the next day for an overnight stay and would have all my testing done right away. Everything went so amazingly fast that I was done with everything by 4:00pm and I didn’t even have to stay the night at the hospital! The following Monday I met with the doctor for the results (explained below) and the results were so good that I had no reason to stay in South Africa as long as I had originally expected. I called the airlines and changed my tickets for Wednesday and made it back home to Nigeria a full 10 days ahead of time.
Hospital Room
As far as my health, it’s all great news. I’m am very healthy… Praise God! The only health concerns are… Gastritis and High Cholesterol causing a “fatty liver”.
An ultrasound found that my liver is a little big and they call it a fatty liver. The doctor told me, without having seen the blood tests results yet, that it is most likely caused by high cholesterol and the blood test results later confirmed it. My cholesterol is elevated, but not bad enough to treat with medicine. A change of diet and exercise should help all of this in some time.
Dr. Office
Next, they did the gastroscopy and found no ulcers, took some biopsies, and found that I have gastritis which is inflammation of the stomach lining, but no cancers, etc. It can be caused by diet, but the doctor and I think it could be a result of long-term use of ibuprofen or the combination of the two.
Thats it.
As far as malaria, the doctor and I are in agreement that there is no way I actually had malaria that many times. He suspects that I was sick each time, but it was most likely a false positive or poor lab technician giving the wrong diagnoses and I was actually sick with something else giving many of the same symptoms of malaria. The doctor basically said that just as one person is allergic to poison ivy and another isn’t or that seasonal allergies affect some while others not at all, is most likely how my body is different in fighting small bugs and infections from most other expats in our field. The gastritis could also be contributing to my symptoms producing diarrhea, nausea, and cramping. They did a test to see if malaria is in my blood down to the molecular level. They found none and that means that it is not living in my liver and not lying dormant. I have no malaria in my blood. He does want me to change to a different medicine for preventing malaria.
New Testament in Afrikaans at Dr.’s office
They checked my liver, kidneys, gallbladder, and other major organs with ultrasound and combined with blood tests, everything is functioning normally. My immune system is fine. They tested for Schistosomiasis and it is negative. Stool given is completely clean (oxygen-moron?) no parasites or bad bacteria.
The doctors biggest takeaway from our discussions was that in my history I mentioned that I am never sick when I am away from Nigeria. He kept saying, “It’s your environment”. This is when he explained that my body acts differently to the normal things of Nigeria that other people’s bodies tolerate easily. It is just what each of us is genetically predisposed to handling with our immune systems.
We are extremely thankful that our health insurance with SIM is great. When being treated outside of the USA they cover 100% of the medical costs. If I had come to the USA for treatment, there would have been a large deductible in addition to all travel costs.
That’s really the best summary I can give. Thank you all for your prayers during this time. We appreciate all of you and once again your prayers have worked for our family!
Here are some extra pictures of my trip…
View just outside the driveway of the house I stayed in.
Table Mountain. One of the 7 Wonders of Nature in the world.
Sunset in Cape Town
Another view of Table Mountain. This just a block away from the house I stayed.
My rental car. Tiny, but it was brand new.
Got to put my toes in the sand.
One of the dinners I cooked for myself. Can anyone say “High Cholesterol”?
Crystal clear nights and the moon.
One of the dinners I cooked for myself. Can anyone say “High Cholesterol”?
Dishes for a single guy.
My nice room for the stay.
I once heard a comedian say, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Well I can certainly relate to that sentiment. Many of you know that I’ve had numerous bouts with malaria since moving to Nigeria, but you may not be aware of just how many times I have been sick with it. From my count, I’ve had it eighteen times. My malaria is now a legal adult at eighteen. It can join the army. It has the right to vote. It can even buy a pack of cigarettes if it wants to.
Added into the mix were bouts with intestinal worms, E. Coli, Salmonella, and a newly diagnosed ulcer. I can truly say “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
So many questions, but there are no true answers to be found here on Jos. So, what can be done? Well, together with SIM, we have decided that I need to seek a specialist in Tropical Medicine and infectious diseases to get some real answers. After emailing at least sixty doctors throughout Europe and South Africa, I’ve found a doctor in South Africa that is willing to see me. I’ve made an appointment for July 5th to meet with him and he is ready to run a battery of tests to see what is going on. Please pray for this time. I will go alone and leave my family behind. I am not sure of the length of stay in South Africa, but I am expecting up to one month to allow for diagnostic testing and potential treatment. 
As we drove, headed north away from the Plateau, I remember being surprised at the beauty of it all. The landscape was much different than I imagined. Mountains out to the far distance and between them were huge expanses of green. In my mind, I thought we would have left all of the green behind. Heading into the North meant to me that we were going to start to see desert everywhere. That wasn’t the case at all. I see that this is a vital place in Nigeria that produces food for the whole country.
As my travels continued I noticed people everywhere buying, selling, or butchering livestock to celebrate the holiday (Eid al-Adha), which is known as the sacrifice feast. The meaning behind the holiday is that it honors the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son, as an act of obedience to God’s command. Before Abraham sacrificed his son, God provided a ram to sacrifice instead. For this Mu$lim holiday, an animal is sacrificed and divided into three parts. One part is given to the poor and needy, another part is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the family eats the remaining part. I think back now and consider how God made so many parallels in Abraham’s story with the redemption of his creation by offering one final sacrifice in Jesus to take our place. I pray the thousands of people I passed that day will have a chance to hear the rest of the redemption story. 
As we got further away from the Plateau, our SIM Nigeria Director started to point out piles of rubble or even a green field that used to be a church. Each came with its own story about how the church members would rebuild and then persecutors would tear down the building again and again. After five or more times they would eventually give up and many of the congregations either had left or they now meet in the open air.
The next morning we headed a little further up the road about 45 minutes to the small town of Tofa where SIM’s indigenous partner church, Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), has a theological seminary. I was blessed to meet many people there and everyone was gracious to have the cameras “ON” so that I could take film of this institution. These videos will highlight the need for missionaries to come and teach as well as identify ways that God is working in these places. The harvest is plenty but the workers are few.
Miles In Missions 