July 20, 2006.
Bata Litoral
Dear friends and family in Jesus Christ,
We are sending our greetings to you in the name of our almighty God to whom we pray every day for his love and grace to be among all of you in every local congregation. This time our letter goes to you in gratitude for your prayers before God on behalf of both of us. We honor and praise him for his everlasting grace.
We give thanks to our Lord for the gift of life. Andrés looks fine as he continues his recovery from malaria. He went through three days of fever accompanied by the typical bone and muscle pain felt throughout the body. One week ago, days after he spent time in the countryside working in his evangelism program, the infection hit even though he was taking the prophylaxis to prevent the disease. This is normal among people not used to living here and no one is totally immune to malaria while living in this part of the world.
For the past two and a half years most things were very normal in our day-to-day work. But the winds suddenly changed when I began feeling something was wrong in my body. I awakened on a Friday morning feeling deep pains in my muscles, a persistent migraine and more pain in the joint areas of his bones. That morning I went to a private clinic located near home. There I asked for a test to confirm or to dismiss the presence of malaria in his blood. Two hours later, at 10:00 a.m., I went back to the clinic and picked the report up. Curiously the test did not show any sign of the disease.
Based on the lab’s report I felt myself a fortunate guy, thinking my body was clean. That Friday evening my sense of confidence started to crack when after taking two Tylenols for relief of the headache, the pain became worse and was accompanied by fever and shaking. That Friday night was a sleepless one. The fever went up and down; meanwhile, I knew the severe bone pain was an indicator that something was seriously wrong. We thought it might be typhus, dengue or one of the other tropical diseases that occur in this country.
On Saturday morning Andrés went to another clinic lab and asked for a more definitive blood test. An hour later we knew Andy was ill with malaria. About noon I called the doctor, a Cuban female specialist on tropical diseases, and came home for the diagnosis and proper medical prescription.
I started taking the medicine, a combination of Artemisin and Fansidar—seven pills that day. I felt like the cure began to demolish the inner pieces of my bowels. Without solid food in my stomach, I felt under my belly like something was squeezing the last drop of liquid from my guts. I drank sweet water often and bananas were the most delicious meal I got from time to time.
The fever and shivers charged again. This time the malaria attack was a brutal one. The high fever continued hammering my head , and then I lapsed into short nightmares in which images of a surrealistic world seemed to crush my heart and strangle my soul. In between those nightmares and bad dreams I woke up and fell into a sort of sleep in which I saw myself as a tiny piece of living matter flying in an amazing universe.
It was two days and three nights of hell, the most miserable time I ever have had. During that experience I lost my sense of time. The only thing I can vaguely recall from the intermezzo between dreams is Gloria’s voice encouraging me to have something to eat … I do not know the anguish Gloria went through during those days and nights, facing alone a sense of powerlessness, but trusting and hoping only on the overwhelming love and grace of God.
Important for you to notice: In consultation with people in Mutual Mission Office in Louisville, we are preparing plans to return to the United States this coming January. Gloria and I would love to spend some time in your church or presbytery for sharing more about the PC(USA) ministry in Equatorial Guinea. Get in touch now with Bruce Whearty at the Mission Connections Office, phone number (502) 569-5612 or by email.
Andrés and Gloria Garcia
The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 319 |
