Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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Friends and Family…

 

You read the title right… I had the unfortunate experience of being bitten by one of my least favorite animals, THE MOSQUITO, while my team was in Mozambique in June.  From the time of the malaria infested mosquito bite, there is typically an incubation period of 1 to 3 weeks before symptoms manifest themselves. 

I did not begin to feel sick until our second day of ministry in Backdoor, South Africa at the beginning of July.  Malaria is a funny disease in that it comes in waves; one day you will feel like death and the next day you will feel much better.  Sickness in waves is foreign to me and completely different than anything I have experienced before. 
So, as I fell sick the first day, I asked for prayer for healing and the next day I was feeling better.  Then the day after that, I fell sick again and this cycle continued to repeat itself.  After 9 days and 4 waves of malaria symptoms with each wave the symptoms grew exponentially worse, I went to the clinic.  For those of you who know me, my stubbornness in resisting a trip to the doctor and waiting as long as I did is surely not a surprise to you.  In fact, if it had not been for the fact that my teammate Bekah had a dream that she and I would be sharing the gospel with someone we met at the clinic on that Wednesday morning, I probably would not have managed to drag myself out of bed before 8am in time to catch a ride to the clinic.  Thankfully, God knew that giving Bekah that dream and having the salvation of someone’s soul on my conscience was enough to drag my malaria-ridden body out of bed and to the clinic.  Thankfully, I went.  Later that day, the test results came back that I had malaria.  Evidently, I was diagnosed with 3-cross malaria which isn’t the worst nor the best type.  The type that I have was determined to be the kind the causes the greatest number of fatalities, but it does not stay in your liver.  I have since been treated and recovered. 

But, since I do not intend to have malaria ever again in my life, I had to take full advantage of my small window of opportunity to use the phrase “I HAVE MALARIA” as often as possible.  During the three day period between when I was diagnosed and finished my treatment, I used the phrase as often as possible.  For that reason, my teammate Steph decided this was something that simply must be captured on video.  A quick disclaimer… by the time the video was filmed I was feeling better.  I was not in the midst of a wave and I was no longer feeling like I was going to die.  Knowing what I know now, I will never again wait so long to go to the doctor.  I am very blessed that I made it to the clinic when I did and that I will not have long lasting effects from Malaria.  God definitely protected me.  I just want to reassure everyone that I am feeling much better now.  I was doing my best to make light of the situation and the video was intended to be humorous.  Please enjoy!