MOZAMBIQUE 2010 - Malaria and Me

Lichinga, Mozambique
Friday, February 26, 2010
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Malaria and Me
Last Thursday I began to feel quite strange in the morning. Something deep in my body was causing me to feel very sick, sore and tired. After our time of worship together in the morning, I decided to try to take a motorbike trip to Lussenhando with Jesse and Victo, fighting through the pain. It was an uncomfortable ride and when we got the the village, I felt as though I wanted to fall asleep. Still, we prayed with the one blind lady, who is doing better and better and sat down with a group of youth, teaching them from Scripture. That night I began to experience horrible diarrhea, stomach pain, headache, fever and chills.
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Our plan for the next morning was to go with Jesse, Tanya and Zoe to the lake at Meponda, just to get some rest and relaxation. I was on the verge of not going with them, but at the last minute decided to continue to fight through the pain. We made it to the lake, but I felt miserable the entire time. That night it rained throughout the night on our tent covered with a tarp. I was getting an average of two hours of sleep each night and feeling worse.
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All of this continued as we headed back to Lichinga, but now I was also vomiting along with (and often at the same time as) the diarrhea. The stomach pains were becoming unbearable, to where I literally could not sleep and was always doubled over. On top of that, we began to experience a rat infestation in our house, and rats were literally crawling onto the bed at night and crawling on me. This also wore me down as the few breaks between the pain that I did have to sleep were spent warding off rats. I decided to begin taking the Malaria medication, which is a series of pills taken for five days. Many people were praying for my recovery. The symptoms slowly began to lesson after much prayer and taking the Malaria medication. I am just now feeling (almost) back to normal. But let me tell you, it was not a fun week of being the most sick I have ever been. Thanks to all of you for your prayers for me.

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Malaria is transmitted through the bite of a mosquito infected with Malaria. We have taken precautions by taking "Neem" oil extract, which comes from a tree in India. It is a natural preventative medicine that missionaries swear by and is 95% effective against Malaria. I quit taking the drops of "Neem" oil over a month ago so that everyone else would have enough for them until we can make a trip back to the U.S. to obtain some more.
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Christian Young