Little gypsy men stealing my thoughts

Having been literally knocked on my back by dengue (what’s that, you ask? Go here for more detail), I am in the process of struggling back up to the surface of reality and some sense of normalcy. While still not out of the woods, I can at least walk across the room now without my muscles and joints exploding in pain, my head feeling like it is going to erupt like Mt. St. Helen, and my heart feeling like it is running in molasses.

Probably the most fun part has been the fever of almost 104° and the attendant “sights.” It is fascinating how you can see things that aren’t there, or, maybe they’re always there and you just can’t see them without a high fever. During the early morning hours all sorts of things were appearing in my bedroom. Dreams? Man oh man, do you get some psychedelic dreams! I had the same little gypsy man coming around each night, all night long, for three nights, making up little boxes especially designed to catch my thoughts. I would have to intensely fight my thoughts to not think them or he would catch them. I’d wake up exhausted just from running from him all night long!

Last night around 4:00 a.m. the fever of three days finally broke, big time. I woke up thinking that I either a) wet the bed or b) had been drenched with a bucket of water. Never had a fever break with such intensity! It actually brought me amazing clarity for about an hour and I just sat there reveling in the feeling.

So, hopefully I’m on the mend.

For your viewing pleasure, if you’d like to see how the mosquito that carries dengue reproduces, check this out. (HINT: it’s in the water!) Though it is in Portuguese and Spanish, I think you’ll get the point

Toeless

Sometimes things really catch your attention.

Paul was recounting something that caught his while in Ubaúna as we talked last night.

We were visiting a member of the church. The couple has three children. The middle girl, Giselle, is approximately 9 years old. Paul noticed she was missing her big toe. This seriously messed with him.

If a child, or an adult for that matter, suffered an accident here in the U.S. in which they lost a toe, they would be rushed to the emergency room, modern medical marvels (including the attempt to reattach the toe) would be utilized, pain medicine applied in abundance and the system would do everything humanly possible to minimize the consequences. While none of us would want to have such an experience, we take comfort in the fact that if we did, we would have help available.

Giselle lives in Ubaúna. She had none of this available. No hospital, no pain medicine, no doctor, no help, no system. Far from any form of assistance, she would have suffered, horribly, for days. The recuperation would have taken months and would have been more difficult than we might be able to imagine. For us living in America, it is incomprehensible and frightening to even imagine; for Giselle and everyone living in a place like Ubaúna, it is reality.

This is the reality of northeastern Brasil; this forms the mentality that the good news has to penetrate; this is what Jesus sent us to do and to grapple with.