HE IS RISEN

I know, according to the church calendar I'm a few weeks late on using this title but it's a truth that always rings true no matter what the date. It's also what someone said at the denominational offices here in Quito when they saw me this week. I apologize for the long silence in my communication but it's been a very rough 2011. He is risen was an appropriate comment towards me because it had been nearly two months since I had been seen anywhere outside of my own home. As you well know I started my year with an end of January knee surgery. After nearly two months of physical therapy I was feeling in tip top shape when I started to feel ill. Normally when I start to feel sick I refuse to allow it to take over and in fact 90% of the time I feel better the next day. Even when others around me are getting sick I refuse to allow it to attack me and sure enough I don't get sick. I thought it would be the same this time but as luck would have it, a week after I had started to feel ill I was feeling worse every day. Finally after about a week and a half I woke up one day and every single joint in my body ached so bad that I could barely move.

I couldn't straighten my elbows, my glands in the back of my neck were swollen, my fingers, back, toes, ankles, and knees were in unbearable pain. My stubbornness knows a limit so I willed myself out of bed, into the shower and down to a clinic. Finding nothing obviously wrong with me they ran some blood tests and told me it was a viral infection. The beauty of a viral infection is that it is untreatable. The only way to deal with it is to REST. I'm not a big fan of said treatment but was told it would probably only last another week. I went home, put on a movie or two and rested...and rested....and rested...and I wasn't feeling any better. I knew that there was one outstanding blood test result that takes longer to get so a friend went to the hospital and picked it up for me. There in the numbers and strange names was my answer. Epstein Bar. No, not a jewish law exam but what we commonly know as the kissing disease, MONO. After researching online and asking a few nurse friends the conclusion was unanimous MONO.

Naturally, I was perplexed because I had read that the incubation period for this wonderful new friend of mine is between one and two months and I had only started my kissing spree during the last couple of weeks. I later found out that a friend who I had been with during Christmas had been ill with MONO and despite it's friendly street name, MONO can be transmitted by means other than kissing. This was a relief to me because I didn't remember kissing him.

So that puts me at nearly two months since I first started feeling sick and I'm glad to say that I've ended my relationship with MONO. Sure I'm still feeling the aftereffects but I have more and more strength every day. Thank you for all your prayers even if you didn't know that I was going through this experience. While it was horrible it gave me lots of time and freedom to do a lot of reading and I actually enjoyed the time to pray and spend time in the word without any schedule to rush me.

Rewinding a few months... After what was a very difficult time working with the Youth Leadership here in Ecuador I've requested some new options that have been approved by the leadership here. I have been given six months to develop the church's website as well as a microenterprise training program. I'm mostly done with the website save a few peripheral issues and have started working on the training program.

I'll go into the details of the training program in my next communique but wanted to share a few prayer requests.

1. Please continue to pray for renewed health as I get stronger and stronger every day, right now even just a couple of hours of activity can wear me out.

2. Please continue to pray for our friend Earl. He is currently living with my parents but still desperately needs to the weight that is affecting his health. He has sent a video into the biggest looser but has not heard back from them. I've laid out strict diet plan for him but it is very much up to him if he keeps it.

3. I have a busy summer with teaching at camp, short term teams, translating, and teaching for two weeks at a mini seminary for youth. I need wisdom, energy and more energy.

Blessings.

Joshua