Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for my blog/website and there have been a lot of things that have happened since last August, for sure. Here’s the story of one of my little adventures.

I was supposed to go back to Africa in April 2015 but, four days before I was to get on a plane to Uganda, I ended up in the emergency room. I was with my son at a small festival in midtown Atlanta. He got us the tickets thinking that it would be a fun day before I headed to Africa.

Now this wasn’t just any old festival, this was called a bacon-fest but the bacon was not that good so we were fixing to leave when things got really interesting. I had a mild heart attack! Now I know you’re thinking, “At a bacon festival? Really? You’ve got to be kidding!” Nope, I’m not kidding. I really was at a bacon festival when I had a heart attack. You can’t make this stuff up and yes, my life can be strange and weird at times.

I have to tell you the details just to show you how every part of our lives is ordered by God, even when we don’t think much about Him ordering our every step. Because we were at this bacon festival in midtown, I was less than ten minutes from Emory Hospital, one of the best heart hospitals in the world. That meant that it was less than an hour and a half from the time when I had my first chest pain, which was really bad, until my heart cath. That’s really quick!

When they, mostly my son who is a paramedic, got me to the hospital and into the ER, the lady doc and all the nurses thought that it was extremely funny that I was at a bacon festival and, of course, had a good time making jokes about it. The doctor said that if she had not had to work that day she would have been at the festival with her boyfriend. Then she added that that was where he was right now, so I suggested that she should call him to tell him that he should leave before it killed him. Just saying.

So they finally run out of jokes and send me upstairs to have a heart cath where they find a 90% blockage, which they fixed with a stint. I don’t know about you, but having people put things in my body just seems a little creepy and weird. Now I’ve got this expanding mesh thing to let the blood flow to my heart or maybe it’s from my heart, anyway something like that.

The heart cath was no big deal, but, as normal for me, things are not always simple even if they start out simple. I mean, who knew that I would have a reaction to the dye that they use and not just a reaction but a severe reaction, as in, one of the worst that they had ever seen! Everybody got really excited and started yelling about reactions, pushing meds, getting meto ICU, and yelling at people to get out of the way, kind of just like on tv shows. The last thing I remember, as they are running down the hall to ICU, is doing a quick confessing with the Lord. I was telling Him that if I was going to die could we make it kind of quick because I had quit having fun some time back when the whole throat swelling shut, skin burning and everything else started to almost freak me out!

Later, I wake up in the ICU unit with all these people running around giving me shots and putting in IVs and new stick-on leads for ekg stuff. Just a side note, did you know that nobody will use somebody else’s stick-on leads? So now I’m on my fourth or fifth set of these stick-on things. I mean, if they had to put another set on me they would have to start ripping old ones off. So anyway, all of these people are sticking me, poking me, and hooking me up to stuff, all the while commenting on the fact that they had never seen anybody so red and broken out with such a rash. I mean, I had a rash between my fingers, toes, and every square inch of my body but at least my throat had not swelled completely shut so I could breath. You learn to be thankful for the little things.

As you’ve guessed by now, I didn’t die. I’m still around and kicking. I’m doing well but still need to lose some weight and all that kind of stuff… but, all in all, I’m doing pretty good.

I’ll be going back to Africa, I hope, in February 2016 and in the meantime, I’m staying busy helping Archbishop Jones. I’ll also be traveling with him and a team to Brazil in October to minister to some of our CEC churches there.

Please pray for me. It’s been a busy summer and its looks like a busy fall coming up. For sure, pray for me to hear the Lord better so that He doesn’t have to almost kill me to get me to do what He wants me to do.

Oh yea, I still like bacon!!