Pictured below: Feverish virus girls making the long journey home to make it to a US hospital.
Hello All!
Rory here! It has almost been 6 months since we left everything to come do missions in Ecuador and the time has flown by. At the same time, we have seen God working in some mind blowing ways, and have been humbled to be a part of His plan for this country. The funny thing is that when you go out to missions people usually warn you about how hard it is going to be, but somehow the Lord has blessed us with such a beautiful and enjoyable situation and we have really been thriving. That is, until things started getting complicated about a month ago, and we urge all our prayer warriors to join us through intercession!
If you remember from our last update, in late September we went to a medical brigade in the jungle with a small team of Ecuadorian doctors and provided medical treatment for a whole Shuar community. Almost two weeks after the brigade, Claire and our best friend Natalie, who moved to Ecuador to do missions with us, developed a high fever, body aches and additional symptoms. We thought it was just a bad flu and thought nothing of it. However, a week went by and their symptoms did not improve and even got worse. Come to find out that 7 out of the 10 people that attended the brigade all developed similar symptoms. Long story short, it has been almost a month of symptoms including high fevers, body aches, night sweats, fatigue, and now due to the extended complications caused by this virus, secondary complications have risen up such as pneumonia.
In addition, Claire has also developed some heart issues including pericarditis (an inflammation of the lining of the heart) and a small pericardial effusion (a buildup of fluid between the layers of tissue that line the lungs and the chest cavity). Through all of this, we still have not been able to identify what virus is causing this illness. Claire, Natalie and some other members of the brigade team have traveled back the U.S. to receive medical care. Both are waiting on results from CT scans and lab work from an Infectious Disease team.
Please pray for:
Wisdom and knowledge to identify the virus/root cause.
Healing for the primary symptoms of the virus and the secondary symptoms of inflammation in the heart for Claire and in the lungs for Natalie.
Quick recoveries, and a prompt return to the mission field, as well as wisdom to do so adequately.
We are so grateful to have such a devoted team of prayer warriors, and we ask you all to rise to the call and join us in prayer over this situation!
Much love to you all,
The Angulos
The girls didn't move from this couch for 2 weeks. Gatorade and antibiotics and Tylenol and Gilmore Girls kept them going!
Thank you for the update. This is awful but please know I am praying and sharing this so other prayer warriors can join in.
I do hope you get well very soon. It has been wonderful seeing you these past weeks, but know you want to be with your new family and husband. I wish you safe travels back to Ecuador and pray you get better. Love you. Grandma okeefe.