A dengue-good christmas

Opening stockings this morning. Amanda, Mia, Gabriella, Ava and a sickly Josh.

Merry Christmas to our friends and family.

I have been meaning to sit down and update you all on Josh’s status since he arrived home from Maribel, knowing that some of you haven’t heard that Josh was ill while others of you are informed but are curious to know how he is doing.

So, the update: he is recuperating from dengue fever. Josh and a small group traveled to Maribel, the Altamira Bases’ most remote work, and also a place that Josh loves to visit. He was into day 3 of 5 when he came down with a fever, headache and body aches. By the time he came home he had fevers reaching 104 and was looking pretty puny. The malaria test came back negative. The other likely culprit was dengue fever which came back positive. Dengue fever is a disease caused by viruses that are transmitted by mosquitoes. Josh had the classic case of headache, fever, joint and muscle pain, a red rash, and fatigue. The treatment is rest, fluids, Tylenol and in Josh’s case, an entire season of Lost.

Josh has been fever-free for the last 2 days and was even able to (feebly) attend a Christmas Eve party last night, which had us eating dinner at 10:30pm and us bowing out for our beds a bit before midnight. Other than that our Christmas has been quite still, a pleasant diversion from the chaotic celebration many of you are doing back home. Stripped of all the parties, programs, presents, over indulgence of both cooking and eating, we experience how silently, the wondrous Gift is given.

So, a picture is worth a thousand words. And quite honestly the experiences of the last few weeks could be worthy of those thousand words but I can't quite conjure up the energy to spill it on the keyboard. So here are some pictures and hope it suffices.

Josh expending his limited energy opening his present.

Prior to Josh getting sick, our family made our own Christmas tree out of açai branches that we cut off from trees in our yard.


I know little of what occurred during Josh's trip to Maribel, most of which I learned from Clyde who stayed the night and told me stories while Josh fevered in bed. Josh did tell me it was a great visit in that they were able to encourage and teach some key leaders as well as check in on a local pastor that had recently been outfitted with a boat to do his own outreach.

Having house church. I love this way of doing "church."

Some piranhas Josh caught before dengue caught him.

A peaceful home on the river. A typical dwelling in the Maribel region.

Josh after he got dengue fever. Perhaps Allison was serenading him..."Hush little baby don't say a word...." Probably not.

This is the boat they traveled in, going from one village to another.

Another home that hosted a house church meeting.

We are always humbled to hear of our friends and family supporting us with prayer and lifting up our needs before our Father. The past few weeks has been an especially difficult season, with sickness both in the body and homesickness in the heart. So please know how thankful we are for prayers and attention in our lives.