Hello Everyone!

I'm afraid I have some bad news. A few weeks ago (actually almost four weeks ago) our team went on a hike on a mountain. You might remember me mentioning it in a previous blog. I did not mention in that blog that while we were hiking a teammate of mine was up a head of me. He stepped on a rock that was loose and it slipped and rolled down the hill. While it rolled, it broke into a few pieces, and one of those pieces flew into my leg. It was quite a gash on my leg and a huge purple and blue bruise all around it (it's on the side of my right leg). Well, it was swolen and sore for a couple of days but eventually, it was fine to walk on it and the bruising went away after a couple weeks.

I went to the doctor last week (as in two weeks ago from this coming tuesday, if that's not too confusing), because my foot had turned blue and around the scab was still swolen a bit. He told me that when my leg got hit, it opened a vein and with activity, the blood went down my leg and that was why my foot was blue. However, he simply told me that the bump was just scar tissue from my deep cut on my leg.

Well, I will try to make this as easy to understand as i possibly can. This is what this week looked like for me:

Monday: I had felt kind gross and sick for a couple of days, but I had a fever and my scab on my leg was looking yellow and pussing. It was sore which was unusual becaus it had been fine for about a week.

Tuesday: I was still feeling sick and my fever was higher. My whole lower leg was hurting and the scab was looking worse. So I went to the doctor and he told me it was infected and gave me antibiotics. I went home and kept it elevated.

Wednesday: With my mother's guidence, we wanted to rule out any life-threatening possibilities, so I went and had some blood tests done. I didn't want to have a staf infection. The blood tests showed that everything was fine, I just had an infection and that's what was making me sick. Nothing dangerous. However, I was unable to walk on my leg at all. I was given crutches from a friend to use for the week.

Thursday: I still had a fever and my leg was not getting any better so we decided to go to the doctor again. It was a holiday here in South Africa, so we went to the on-call doctor at a different doctor's office. I got there and he looked at it and told me I had an absess in my leg. So he had to drain it with a needle and he had to make an insision into the wound (not deep enough for stitches). He drained out all the pus and took good care of my leg. It was the most painful experience of my entire life. My fever was gone almost immediately which is a great sign. I was still unable to walk on it.

Saturday: I had a follow-up appointment with the doctor to check on my leg. And he says it's looking good. My ankle is swolen, but the doctor said that with antibiotics and rest, it should get back to normal. I still can't walk on that leg yet so I'm sitting here with it elevated as the doctor commanded. It's still pretty sore but I can sense it's improvements. Still no fever and I don't feel sick like I did earlier in the week.

I really need all your prayers! I only have two more days of ministry with my kids at Ithemba! We leave for Cape Town on Wendesday for debrief. I need to be well. Please pray for a quick healing. Please pray for my spirit, also. It has been really hard to be in bed for a whole week of ministry, my last full week of ministry. I'm trying not to feel too down, but please pray for peace.
      Please pray that i will be able to walk on my sore leg. Please pray for the swelling to go down. Please pray for the rest of the infection to go away. Please pray for the medications to work. Thank you so much. Let's all pray and have faith and believe that God can and will heal me quickly. I have so much planned for this final few days and i really want to be there for my kids.

Thank you for your prayers!