Haiti update and "N"

First a Haiti update:
We have been able to finalize all the Haiti adoptions that were in process. We have also been able to have other kids go home- some families wanting to adopt one child ended up with two and some families who were waiting on referrals from other countries switched to Haiti. God is really working right now!

For the Alphabet continuation:

N- Neurology

I can't remember if I have blogged about this before or not. Some of you probably know this story already anyway.

When I was 15 - just after my freshman year in high school I went to Zimbabwe with my friend Danny Reese and his family who lived there as missionaries with World Bible School. I had wanted to go to Africa to do mission work since I was about 8 years old. My mom and dad were both going with us so my siblings all stayed at friends' houses for 2 weeks. My parents met in Scotland on separate mission teams. They stayed at worked at a church in Edinburgh for several years so on the way to Zimbabwe my parents and I stopped in Scotland to visit for a few days. Then we went on to Africa for several weeks.

We had an incredible trip. I sat and studied with people just hearing about Christ, encouraged Christians who may have been the only believers in their village, spend lots of time in prayer, praise and fellowship. I also got to visit Victoria Falls, climb rocks in Matobos, see all kinds of animals (elephants, zebras, buffalo, cheetahs and lions) free in game parks and other adventures. It was a great experience. I tell people that once you go to Africa it becomes a part of you - the land, the people - they all made a lasting impression on my heart. I still yearn to go back!

My parents and I were leaving a few weeks before the Reese family. We were flying from South Africa to Zurich, Switzerland and then on to Chicago before finally getting back to Texas. I started to feel sick on the flight to Switzerland. During our layover I didn't do anything but sleep. Almost as soon as we got on the plane to fly to Chicago I started throwing up. I think I used almost every barf bag on the 747. I had a high fever, my head and neck were killing me and I couldn't keep anything in my stomach for the whole 7 hour flight. There was a doctor on board from the Mayo clinic who suspected meningitis. When we landed in Chicago an ambulance met us on the runway and took me off on a stretcher to go straight to the hospital. They even quarantined the rest of the plane! In the ER they did a spinal tap and then MRI/CT scans and all sorts of infectious disease tests since I was in Africa. All of this revealed nothing but a small sinus infection. I later heard that the doctors told my parents to let me talk to my siblings because if they couldn't figure out what was wrong I might not make it. I cannot even imagine how terrifying this was for my parents to be in a strange city with a very sick child.

After about a week I was stable enough to fly home to Austin where I was immediately put back into the hospital there. I missed the first 8 weeks of my sophomore year of high school because I was in and out of the hospital, still with no definite diagnosis of any sort or any treatments that seemed to help. At this point, the problem was that I would have headaches so bad that I had to be lying flat or else I would pass out or throw up. At times the pain was worse than having my baby! The only test that ever came back even remotely positive was one for the Epstein Bar Virus which is a form of mono. The conclusion was that I contracted some sort of virus while in Africa that made me sick and the headaches were a result of that. It was diagnosed as Occipital Neuralgia migraines by default.

The next several years were a series of spinal taps, MRIs, ER trips, hundreds of lab tests, over 50 different medications and lots of doctor visits. I even went to a special clinic in Houston for a week.

Long story short, while these headaches have gotten better it is still a struggle. You might be thinking "so why is this in a alphabet of things you are thankful for?" Even when I was first in the hospital in Chicago, I was remembering the lessons about Hope that I had just heard at Kadesh. I decided that whatever happened, I would go to heaven and that God was in control. I have learned a lot from this trial. I have prayed and prayed for this illness to be taken away and came to the conclusion that God may not heal my body but He has healed my spirit. I am who I am in part because of this challenge. I have gone back to Africa twice since this incident and would go again in a heartbeat. I love to read Paul's statement about his thorn in the flesh - God's power is made perfect in our weakness and I have definitely been weak. Another verse that I clung to was "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." 2 Cor. 4:17 One of the things I have prayed and continue to pray is that God will use me and this experience to be able to share things about Him and plant those seeds. I have seen some of that already in my life and am excited to see what else God will do.

Thank you to those of you who read this ridiculously long post.