A Little More Clarity

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our suffering, you will also share in the comfort God gives us... ...But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely on God.

I read that this morning and it really helped me see how God is working through this situation.

Reasons Daniel is staying in the hospital longer:

• The infection is worse in his back because bacteria continue to pass through his tissues from his colon. The doctors want to keep him on IV antibiotics to combat the infection. After skyrocketing on Sunday, Daniel´s white blood cell count is now slowly declining (white blood cells are a sign of infection, less is better).
  
• He has a hole in his colon that needs lots of protein to heal. The best way for him to get protein right now is through the IV.
  

Latest news:

• After allowing the fistula (hole from his colon to his back) to drain using gauze to absorb it, the doctor decided to clean things up a bit today. Daniel now has a colostomy bag attached to his back. This is not a normal colostomy which requires surgery and interuption of the normal bowel circulation. This is just a temporary bandage until the hole closes. Pray that the hole closes quickly.
  
• Daniel is drinking Ensure-like stuff now, a good step in getting him back to eating regular food again. He´s drinking a lot of water and powerade and some juice also.

And about me.

I took my first hot shower in a while today at his parents´ hotel. It was amazing. On Sunday, after the surgery, Dr. Bello invited me to lunch with him. We ended up driving about 30 minutes to the coast and checked out the town of Crucita. A beautiful beach with lots of people and even a few paragliders. We had lunch at an excellent restaurant with some of his family and for $5 I had shrimp, lobster, calamari and all kinds of delicious goodness. He picked up the bill and took me to see his beach house that he is building. He had just found out that he is going to be a father and was really excited about that. I also got a chance to talk with him about Christ which was awesome. He believes, but has a lot of questions. It was a sweet time.

I am starting to think that coming to Ecuador was not nearly as important as listening to and obeying the voice of God in my life. As the passage above suggests, when we trust in God in truth, our faith grows. God is definitely using this experience to increase my faith and to bring glory to Himself.