My soldiers need backup

Hey everyone, sorry it's been a while. As I said before, I got sick right after we came back, and I'm still on the mend. At Faith Alive, they teach their patients about white blood cells by relating them to soldiers defending your body. Clearly, my soldiers are overwhelmed. I wound up missing Monday and Tuesday from work, and I still haven't quite shaken off my fever. I went to the doctor on Tuesday and she wasn't sure what was wrong with me. She thought I looked too healthy to have the flu, so at the advice of the local infectious disease doc, she drew some blood just to be safe. It turns out that I'm okay, no malaria or anything was found. I didn't think there would be, but when you spend 2 weeks in a country that you have to get 5 vaccines just to feel prepared to travel to...you can never be to cautious. My fever is slowly going away, and I'm feeling better day by day.

And because of my illness, the whole reintegration/culture shock seems to be going by pretty smoothly. It turns out that when you can't do anything but lay on the couch and watch TV, you slip back into traditional American culture pretty quickly. Now that's not to say that I'm just going to ignore what I saw in Nigeria and move on, I hardly think that is an option. In fact, I imagine I'll be examining my lifestyle for a long time to come. Now that I'm back at work, I'm starting to get questions from co-workers about the trip. I don't know how to answer "how was your trip?" It's just too complicated for that kind of question. The trip was good. It was challenging on many levels and absolutely worth going on, but how can you put into words what it's like to have children invite you into their homes because they are so proud of them, only to find one room stuffed with all the family's possessions and one bed? Or how can you relate the feeling of sharing a meal with a village's children and laughing with their parents? I know that for some, just saying what I just did might satisfy their questions, but it just doesn't feel right to me. It feels wrong to reduce the people we met to a mere anecdote to be shared casually. The people of Jos deserve better. In fact, the people of Africa deserve better on many levels. The fact is, there are people in Jos of whom I am jealous. If I had the faith and joy that many of them have, my life could mean so much more. I'll elaborate on that at some later date.

A final note for this Valentine's Day...I am sickened by the fact that our government is spending God knows how much money investigating whether or not MLB players are using steroids. Is that really something that our government needs to be involved in? Last week I was with people who make $50 or less a month and were scraping to get by. And I come home and see just how wasteful we are as a country showcased on every news and sports channel. That hits me in the pit of my stomach and I sincerely hope that it does for you, too.

Thanks for reading and God be with you!