C-mail: Cost

Howdy All!

Wow, it's been a while hasn't it? It's amazing how time goes by when you've had lots of things to keep you down, out, busy, running around, and generally occupied.  But no more delays, on to the update! 

1. I want to say THANK YOU!! to everyone for their prayers while I was sick.  I KNOW I wouldn't be in the condition I'm in now without your prayers.  I attribute so much of the goodness I've experienced through this two month plus journey of sickness to the time you have all spent in prayer.  I can't thank you enough and I am so grateful to know people like yourselves that are willing to pray.  Be encouraged to keep praying diligently like that for the folks you know!  More about those months of sickness below. 

2. I've finally moved into the new place.  Actually, moved is a relative term and you understand exactly how relative if you've ever moved before.  Thankfully, there was a lot of stuff left to me by my teammate (Thanks bro!) so I could sleep there without too much hassle.  However, everything involving cooking was another matter.  I won't go into the details, but I feel like I'm fairing only slightly better than Tom Hanks in the Money Pit. No Carebear sightings yet.  Still, I'm really excited to be living there and will be very happy once all the bits and bolts are done so I can cook and invite the new neighbors and other friends over. Pray for God's presence within this place. 

3. Our team has been focusing on evangelism and visits.  This has been a good opportunity for us to grow in evangelism and examine what the good news means in the context of the barrios.  It's been pretty exciting and it feels like God is at work in a number of our neighbors.  Pray for a neighbor that just received a Bible and is starting to read it.  Also pray for a budding community of faith in the barrio of San Pablito. 

4. The world is getting rough these days: food shortages, the earthquake in China, the cyclone in Burma and the consequent complete neglect of the government, rising oil prices, etc.  At least Iraq is looking hopeful.  So what exactly is one to do in the midst of crazy change and disaster?  The easy thing to do is to be comfortable, tell the world to eat cake, and go play Wii.  The other easy option is lose all hope in the world, and then go play Wii.  The opposite extreme is to become a completely self sufficient, hard core, and cynical activist that just eventually burns out in frustration and anger.  I'm certainly not buddhist by any means, but sometimes the middle path has some advantages.  That's why I wrote Kelvin's Fair to Middlin' List of Things YOU Can Do to Help.  I tried to address a lot of the stuff above with simple changes that can easily be made by anyone.  Take and look and add any suggestions you have. 

5. This summer I'll be back in the states for August.  First all members of InnerCHANGE will be meeting for a conference for a week in So Cal starting the 3rd.  I'll be flying into LA on the 31st of July and if anyone is interested in to putting up a roaming missionary for a night or two, let me know.  After that, I'll be headed "home" to my parent's house under construction in Texas for a bit of rest and help with the construction.  I would love to catch up with you all even if it only is by phone.  If you want to talk or catch up, let me know and we'll set up a time. 

Alright that's it for now.  Enjoy the start of summer, end of school (for some of you) and
Press on for Joy!
Cameron




I'd prefer not to write what I'm about to write.  I don't like to write about sickness, much less my own. Yet sickness has been a very large part of my life these past months and to simply avoid the issue would be less than honest.  In these updates I want to share what happens here and specifically those things with which I have first hand experience.  It is my hope that I can share what motivated me throughout the sickness with the goal of explaining the decisions I made.  I'm not writing to convince or in the hopes that you agree.  I'm writing to share and offer some thoughts for consideration.  That said, the sickness played out as follows:

In the last update, I briefly mentioned how I had been bedridden for a week with a nasty case of bronchitis.  This meant fever, pain, no energy or stamina, coughing up lots of phlegm, and feeling generally horrible.  When I mean horrible, I mean pretty horrible.  As it is, I really hate being sick.  Between the options of a stuffy nose and a broken finger, I'd take a compound fractured finger any day of the week.  So, I was very glad when after a number of days of antibiotics, I was improving and just about back to perfect health.  I completed the treatment and returned to the States for a brief midyear retreat and visa run in late March/early April.  However, after a few days there, I fell sick again, and almost with the same severity and symptoms.  Thankfully, I was surrounded by amazing company that took very good care of me.  You all know who you are and I am extremely grateful to you.  I thought I began to feel marginally better while I was there, but I was still extremely sick.  With the acuity of hindsight, I now realize how easy it is to lie to yourself about how you feel; I thought I was a lot better than I actually was. 

When I returned to Caracas, I recovered from the trip and then entered a stage of treatment I'll call the Cuban stage.  Venezuela has a doctor exchange program with Cuba. Venezuelans can travel to Cuba to learn medicine and the Cuban doctors come here to work in clinics for two or more years.  All of the treatment at the clinics is free to the public.  I had heard before that Cuban doctors are some of the best in the world at working in low technology medical treatment.  The Cuban doctors and nurses I met said the same of course, but I was still curious to see if this was the case. 

It started with a visit to a neighbor who is a Cuban doctor.  He listened, looked, asked, and thought.  He sent me off to get an X-ray.  At the medical facility, with freshly developed X-ray in hand, we ran into a different doctor that was shocked and pleased to meet some Americans.  He sat us down and tried his hand at English that wasn't half bad.  After looking at the X-ray, he said I actually had a case of bronchial-pneumonia (aka pneumonia) and suggested seven days of injections with antibiotics. (He gave me the whole week's worth of medicine right there on the spot.  Obviously I couldn't use it myself since I didn't have any needles nor would I know how to inject myself. None the less, I was surprised by this entirely different method for getting medicine compared to the states).  We got a second opinion with our neighbor doctor and he agreed with the prognosis and treatment.

Twice a day for the next week I made my way down to the clinic to get poked.  It was supposedly a ten minute injection which gave me lots of time to talk with the Cuban nurses.  It was nice to talk to another "foreigner" and compare thoughts about Venezuelan culture and cuisine.  I found it interesting that nearly all of them looked forward to the day when they could return back home.  I understand the nostalgia of home, but the debacle of Elian Gonzales and the footage of Cubans on homemade rafts headed toward Miami wasn't jiving with the desire of the nurses to go back. They even thought there were more resources in Venezuela.  I didn't really understand why until one Sunday morning. 

The manager of a car wash directly across the street was shot three times by a man on a motorcycle.  I showed up about ten minutes after the shooting to find everyone at the car wash nervously standing around a large red puddle. I wrote off the color to some car wax or polish, but as I walked across the street, it became clear that it really was blood from the large drops every inch leading from the car wash to the doors of the clinic and continuing inside.  The clinic was abuzz with nurses and doctors running around in emergency mode.  Even though the man had lost a lot of blood and it took about two hours to get more blood into him (mess of a system where all the blood in Caracas is stored somewhere downtown.) they managed to save his life right there somehow.  Thankfully, he should have a full recovery, if he already isn't back at work.  The nurses told me later that the doctors aren't trained to treat gunshot wounds; supposedly, random violence like that isn't a problem in Cuba.  That's why they want to go back. 

During these injections I began to feel a lot better.  The fever and aches went away and I coughed up less and less phlegm.  After seven days, I felt almost exactly how I felt before I came back to states.  Since I fell sick the first time after treatment, I begged them to keep going for fear of regression.  Another X-ray and they agreed.  After twelve days, I felt much better, was hardly coughing up anything and I thought I was done. 

Thought. Five days later I was sick again.  Well, actually not really sick, but I was coughing up phlegm again in a color that suggested infection and my energy had significantly dropped.  It was time to bite the bullet, get a specialist, and see what was up.  After a visit with a respected internist, a slew of blood tests and a catscan (only $60, plus a two hour wait on a holiday), and another visit to review the results, I was diagnosed with a condition called Bronchiectasis.  Basically, some of the tubes in my lungs (my left lower lobe to be precise) are enlarged because the cilia (little hairs) that remove secretions or foreign objects don't work well if at all.  This explained why I kept getting sick after treatments.  Some batch of gunk down in there hadn't been touched by the antibiotics and hadn't been coughed out, even after a lot of expectorant.  The bacteria was released and caused another infection. 

The cause of this condition is unknown.  It could have been caused by this particular sickness, exposure to chemicals (mind thinks back to lots of super glue and epoxy exposure from model scale planes, rockets, etc.) a previous sickness or some genetic issue.  Whatever the cause, the net effect is that I'm rather susceptible to lung infections.  Thankfully, the doctor seemed to think my case is pretty light and aside from being a deep sea diver or astronaut, I can live a totally normal life.  As of right now, I'm on a spay for my lungs, I just finished my last round of antibiotics, and will soon be taking some immunizations for pneumonia and other lung infections. 

So the question everyone is, and was, asking is why didn't you come back to the states for treatment?  That's not an easy question to answer. Not because the answer is hard, but because it is difficult to explain without misinterpretation.  None the less, the answer is easy enough: I didn't go to the states for treatment because none of my neighbors have the option of going the states for treatment.  The explanation is a bit more esoteric: Christmas.

Jesus, who was God, became a human. He became human in a very, well, human sort of way: the slow way.  He was conceived and spent nine months in Mary's womb doing nothing more notable than kicking when Elizabeth showed up.  He grew up just like everybody else, a crying baby, a terrible two, all the way to "increasing in wisdom and stature" and then who knows what until His baptism. Basically, for most of Jesus' life, he was highly normal.  The all powerful God of the universe gave up His power to be dependent on his parents.  God who knows all, spent thirty years doing hardly anything note worthy except learning how to walk, talk, read, work, and communicate.  We always jump to Jesus the superhero, healing the sick and casting out demons with a single breath, silencing Pharisees and lawyers alike with a single phrase, walking on water and spending all night in prayer, and so on.  But it is so easy to forget the Jesus without divine rights, without divine power, and the time spent powerless waiting, growing, learning, and simply being united with the suffering people he one day would reach in the power of the Spirit. 

Likewise, I'm learning that an absolutely crucial part of being a missionary is the time spent learning, time spent being sick, time spent entering into the culture, time spent being with the people, and time spent experiencing what they experience.  A Dutch missionary couple here in Venezuela recently said it well: If you know how to do missionary work, don't. Anyone who "knows" what they are doing won't be able to learn once they are on the ground.  This prevents any sort of relationship that can be built with the community aside from paternalism.  It is only by entering as a learner, as dependent, as weak, that true relationships can form and true learning can take place. 

When I got sick, I had the option to fly back to the states and get really good care and have it all covered by insurance.  None of my neighbors have that option.  As it is, I already felt so many barriers and distinctions between myself and them.  To add one more would have been just too much.  So I stayed.  And as I stayed, I was blessed.  I was blessed by our neighbor's inquiries into my health and all their suggested home remedies.  I was blessed to hear of their own bouts with sickness and then share the bizarre respect that comes from similar suffering.  I was blessed to be able to explain my visits to the clinic, the long lines, the endless run around for tests and consultations, and then be able to end with a "tu sabes" (you know).  Inevitably, they did know and would immediately start on a tirade of curses or praises for the Cubans based on their own experiences and end with a recommendation for a particular doctor, hospital, or treatment. 

Those are certainly not easy blessings to attain, nor ones I would honestly choose knowing their cost.  Yet the cost is not all that great in comparison to Jesus.  Paul uses one of the oldest hymns in Philippians to encourage his readers. "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. " (2:5-11).  May you all be encouraged as well to follow Christ and follow Him in His humility.  It's not easy, but it's good. So stay strong, seek the Lord and

Press on for Joy!
Cameron