Feb 25, 2008

Dear friends,

Below is a letter that our board member and close friend Todd Beliel wrote concerning his recent hospital "visit" in Afghanistan (and Germany).

Sincerely,

-Tim Benedict

----------------------

From Todd Beliel

Dear Friends,

God is good and uses all things for our benefit.  Although I do not like
the pain I went through or the loss of income this has cost me, I am glad
this has happened.  I have been in a place for a long time now were I have
had no motivation for anything and I did not know why.  God has used this
to help me with this.  A few days be fore I got sick I was praying and
told God that I did not like this in my life anymore and I asked him to
change it.  He told me it would take something drastic, and I said I know
but I don't care; I need this changed.  He had my request to do what ever
needed to be done.

A few days later I started to get sick, flu like symptoms; every one is
getting them this time of year; it is cold in Bagram.  I will not give you all
the details, but simply say that there was a spiral where I started to run a
high fever and then started to feel good again.  I was working night
shift so when I got up on Sunday late afternoon I noticed a rash on my
lower calf.   After work I went to see the medical support and was given
antibiotics.  When I got up on Monday, my calf had swelled up, and it hurt to
walk; I was also running a fever again.  I took a shower to help reduce
the fever and then went to the emergency room.  I was admitted, and they
started some tests.  It was determined that I had an infection, and because
of my allergies to different antibiotics, they were limited on what they
could do.  So they started giving me what antibiotics they could by IV,
and a few days later I was flown to Military's Regional Medical Center in
Germany.  By this time my leg had swelled to double its normal size, and
walking was quite painful.  I was carried onto the plane by litter. I
spent most of the time on the litter but had to occasionally get up and move, it was
what the leg needed.  Getting up and walking on that leg on the plane was
the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life, but was what
was needed at the time.

When I sat down in a seat and they propped my leg up on luggage and a
pillow; as I sat there and caught my breath, God showed me something.  I
did not want to walk on that leg, but I did because it was what was
needed.  God made me realize that I had been living my life by what I
felt like doing at the time and not by what needed to be done.  If I wanted
to do more with my life, I needed to stop living by how I feel and what I
feel like doing, but do what needed to be done. 

This is also why I had
lost my motivation, the more I gave into not doing something because I
did not feel like doing it, the less motivation I had to do anything.
Oh, there were things I did that I did not feel like doing, like the job
I had before this were I started work at 5:00 am.  When my alarm went off
at 3:30am, most of the time I did not feel like getting out of bed, but I
did, because I had to go to work.  But for example: working out, I did not work
out because I did not feel like it.  This started creeping into my prayer
life and study time, and I would spend too much time at my computer playing
video games.  I would use the justification that we all need some time to
relax, and we do.  But I did not need that much time with the games and
other non-productive fun things I felt like doing at the time.  God
showed me that if I start just doing the things that need to be done,
regardless of how I feel, I would be much happier with my life and more
productive for him. I just needed to  ask him to show me what needs to be
done and do it.  He will be faithful to show me.   I am getting my
motivation back and will be a different man.

So was it worth it? Absolutely.  Does God make us sick or harm us in any
way? Not at all.  God will allow these things to happen. I thank God that
he loves me enough to allow me to go though the hardships it some time
takes to learn these things.  I do not like pain and being sick, but God,
if that is what I need to be closer to you, then thank you for it.

In Him
Todd Beliel