I was supposed to have a meeting on Tuesday night, but the pastor there has been ill so the meeting was cancelled. This means that I have had three days in a row with no meetings – for the first time since Burundi.
Yesterday I was very grateful for this. I thought that the cough that has bothered me for more than a month had finally cleared up. I actually had a couple of (almost) cough-free days.
But I was wrong: it was simply regrouping for a new onslaught. It started to stir up again on Tuesday night, and by yesterday morning it was back with a vengeance. I was coughing up great gobs of yellow gunk, and my throat felt like I had been swallowing razor blades. By mid-morning I also felt like I was going to throw up. And just to make life even more interesting I had developed an intermittent sharp pain in my right rib area, under my armpit – I suspect that with all the coughing I have managed to pull a muscle. Feeling utterly wretched I took myself to bed for most of the day, and thanked God that I didn’t have to minister (and it’s not often you will hear me say that.)
In between naps I flicked off prayer requests to a couple of people. One of them, my friend John, came back to me and said that one of the guys in his church had told him that the Lord woke him up and told him to intercede for me. That tells me that this isn’t just a “normal” throat infection, but a direct demonic attack. So into warfare mode, and getting excited about what it might be that the Lord has planned that the enemy is so keen to stop.
At a practical level, I did give in and get some antibiotics – Pastor Mac’s wife is a nurse and runs a small pharmacy, so was able to supply them for me (no need for a doctor’s prescription here.) I really hate taking antibiotics, they do terrible things to the friendly bugs in your gut, but in this case I felt it was the sensible thing to do (as well as lots of prayer.)
Today I am feeling slightly better – yesterday I couldn’t even swallow water without it hurting, but this morning I was able to enjoy my breakfast. Continuing to pray for God to either fully heal me this afternoon or override the sickness as I have meetings tonight and tomorrow morning.
The combination of the heat and the rolling power outages here is a major challenge, particularly when the power is out all night. It means you can’t really do any work, and whereas during the day you can at least use a hand fan to keep cool, you can’t do that while you are sleeping (or trying to.) Monday night was one of those nights – too hot to sleep, tossing and turning half the night.
Then half way through the night a storm broke. I love storms (as long as I am snug and safe indoors and enjoying them from a distance) and storms are something that Africa does really well. Bucketing rain. Temperature dropped at least 10 degrees in a few minutes. One massive crash of thunder/lightening that must have hit very close to here. (Light travels at 186,000 miles per second, sound travels at 12.7 miles per minute. Even though at the point of impact the flash and the crash are simultaneous, the light goes out from there at massive speed and the sound lopes along after it like a dachshund pup chasing a greyhound, getting further and further behind with each step. So the less time elapses between the flash and the crash, the closer the point of impact was to where you are.) I loved it, even though I still didn’t get much sleep.
Last night again we had no power from 6.30 pm till around 8 this morning, but again the Lord turned on a fantastic display in a storm that cooled everything down and provided a brilliant light display.