A Detailed Update on Greg Helm's Health Crisis

In this episode, Brody gives an honest look at the medical crisis involving Greg Helms, starting with the ministry work that brought Greg and Kilby to Uganda. He then walks through Greg’s sudden collapse, hours of convulsions, an induced coma, and the desperate search for answers.

Brody cuts through the early chaos and misinformation and follows the unexpected path that led to Greg’s emergency evacuation and specialized care at Duke. Through every step, God’s sovereignty has been evident in the provision, timing, and support they received. Greg is recovering, next steps are underway, and Kilby and Greg express deep gratitude for the prayers and encouragement that have helped sustained them in this difficult season.

Greg and Kilby's Ministry

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why We Missed And Gratitude
• 1:32 The Collapse In Kampala
• 2:32 Who Greg And Kilby Serve
• 5:12 Tribal Context And Tensions
• 9:55 Strategy: Jormado Flights And Lugbara Life
• 12:43 Ministry On The Ground And Radio
• 15:46 Trip To The Capital Before Thanksgiving
• 19:07 Malaria History And Fatigue
• 21:12 The Moment Everything Went Wrong
• 24:02 Confusing Social Media And A Coma
• 27:12 Possible Poisoning And Fears
• 30:05 A Way Home And A Hard Landing
• 32:22 Providence: Doors Open At Duke
• 35:05 Private Flight, Tests, And Ruling Out Malaria
• 38:06 Next Steps: Neurology And Urology
• 41:08 Recovery, Uncertainty, And Peace
• 44:20 Kilby’s Steadfast Care Under Fire

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Man, we missed last week, but we got a lot to catch up on and a lot to talk about. And I'm sorry that we didn't get an episode up, but I think this one will be uh encouraging and also very informative. I want to catch y'all up on what's been going on with my son-in-law, Greg, and my daughter, Kilby, um and their family. It's been a whirlwind for the last few weeks, last couple of weeks, and so many of y'all have been following along and praying through Snowbird's social media, through Greg and uh Kilby's social media. And I'd like to just kind of tell you the story of the last few weeks, and we're still right in the middle of this story, and so there's a lot still yet that needs to be played out. But just give you an update. Uh, just tell everyone thank you. So many texts and emails and messages uh on social media platforms and more than more than I can maybe respond to. And so I want to just uh dedicate this episode to not only updating everybody, but to just saying thank you for your support, financial support to get them home, get them the medical care they needed. It's definitely been uh a move of God's sovereignty and also an incredible encouragement to watch the body of Christ work and come together. So, in this episode of No Sanity Required, I'm gonna give you an update and just rejoice in what the Lord's done. Welcome to No Sanity Required.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

The Friday before Thanksgiving, and I actually uh I'm gonna have to back up to really tell this story, but the Friday before Thanksgiving is when everything sort of kicks off in this story, this narrative. And that's when my son-in-law, Greg Helms, collapsed in a shopping complex in the capital city of Uganda. And there was a lot of confusion, and I'm gonna get into the details of why I think that was, and uh some uh a particular social media post that I think confused a lot of people, but then also just um uh not knowing a difficulty communicating. Greg and Kilby were not together. We had some snowbird people on the ground with them, and um, it was a pretty chaotic time. But I want to tell the story, but uh, in order to tell the story and and then give you an update on how Greg's doing and what this week has been like, this last week has been like, the last seven, eight days, um, let me let me back up. So to understand what Kilby and Greg do, they minister to people uh along the border of Uganda and South Sudan. Now, a quick geography and history lesson. Sudan and South Sudan are two different countries. It's not North Sudan and South Sudan, it's just Sudan and South Sudan. And South Sudan has been a country for I I don't have notes in front of me, I believe since 2011, after uh years and years and years and generations of civil war, there was a split and South Sudan became a country. We were actually living in Uganda in the first half of 2014, and there had been a lot of South Sudanese refugees that had come down into Uganda because there was so much civil war going on in South Sudan, even though it was uh just a couple years old as a country. Uh there there was already factions, and a lot of that had to do with when they established that country, they uh the the thought was to put leadership from both both uh the two main fighting factions or parties to put people from each of those parties in leadership, hoping that that would unify the country, and it did seem to for a little while, and then eventually it led to more civil war in South Sudan. And uh, if you're not familiar with with that, you can you can go do your own research. This is not an episode about that, but just understanding the area that Kilby and Greg are serving, their desire is to be in South Sudan, but there's been a whole lot of conflict there for them, uh, and a number of reasons they can't be there full time. The specific people group that they have targeted and and desire to work with in South Sudan are called the Jormado. And those those people are difficult to get to. Uh, it's not safe to drive a vehicle there uh from Uganda. And so Greg and Kilby have partnered with another couple that has sort of mentored them. Um, Peter and Shauna are their names, and and Peter has a couple of airplanes, and so what they do is they fly, they base out of Uganda, and then they fly and land these airplanes in these villages among this people group. And you got to understand, too, that part of the world, whether you're in Uganda or the DRC, the Congo or Rwanda, Kenya, Sudan, or South Sudan, you have you have different people groups that to us in the West would kind of look the same, but they're very different. It's sort of tribal. And so you've got a lot of factions and tribes and clans, and I'm trying to use sort of Western terminology that would make this make sense. And I think maybe the the best Western analogy would be Native Americans, if you study uh U.S. history, Native American tribes that some got along, some didn't. And so you had tribes that were enemies of other tribes, and then that there would be tribes that would form alliances, and and then some tribes helped uh foreigners like the French or the English, uh, or once America became a nation, um, you know, helped expansion, westward expansion. There there were peaceful tribes like the Nasperse, uh, the Cherokee for the most part were were pretty peaceful. And um, and then you had tribes that were more aggressive uh with with within the Native American communities and in against Western expansion. And so I use that analogy to say that in East Africa and and other parts of Africa, as we do work in West Africa too, with their snowbird people there, you you see some people groups are very uh very open to Western influence and help, and some are not. And then um I just listened to uh a book recently on um conflicts in the Horn of Africa and how just, you know, whether it's in Somalia or Eritrea, I think is how you say that, there's a lot of hostility towards Westerners. And but there's also people that they want help from the West. They want to, they want to grow and assimilate as a culture and a society. And so Greg and Kilby have targeted a group of people that it's not easy to get to, and so they'll fly in, spend uh they've spent as many as six weeks consecutively with these people in as short a period of time as a day. You know, they can they can fly up there and it takes about two or three hours to fly from where they live in northern Uganda, land the plane, and they can do a day of ministry and actually fly back. They can't fly at night, there's no night flying, it's all uh it all has to be daylight. Um, I think because of the, you know, they're landing on dirt strips and stuff like that. It's very it's very primitive. And so Kilby and Greg, while they're not able to live among the Jormado in South Sudan, they have settled among the Lugbara in northern Uganda. Now, let me give you, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you some of the complexities and complications of working in a place like uh Kilby and Greg work. Um, the ministry organization that Kilby and Greg started off close, most closely connected to is the IMB, the International Mission Board. And and we have partnerships with the IMB, Snowbird does. But there's a problem with the way the IMB does some things. I let me just say I really love that organization, and we are partnered with that organization, and I think they do most things really well. They do a lot of things. Nobody does everything right. You know, you you don't have to look far to figure out that Snowbird gets some things wrong. And so the IMB, something that has has sort of become a standard operating for them is since the conflicts in Sudan and South Sudan, the IMB has really targeted Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees. So in northern Uganda, there are a lot of Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees, several massive refugee camps. And Kilby and Greg have worked among those Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees. But the IMB really emphasizes working with refugees. And so I like I have I have a pastor friend whose church was just over there this year, and they're in the same village, same group of villages near the same city where Kilby and Greg live, but they were sort of dedicated to working with refugees from South Sudan. Well, what happens then is you've got massive numbers of people from other people groups that are not targeted by those missionaries. So, in other words, in the West Nile region where Kilby and Greg serve, the main city in that area closest to them is called Arua or Arua City. And the the people group that that is home to are the Lugbara people of Uganda, Lugbara, L-U-G-B-A-R-A. The Lugbara people of Uganda, if they're educated, anybody who's educated speaks English because that was a British colony. And so one of the benefits of doing ministry there is a lot of people speak English. I've been there and taught and preached and shared, and man, you don't need a translator in in certain certain situations, and that's pretty helpful. But Kilby and Greg in in settling in that area, they said, well, as much as we want to work with the Jormado and other South Sudanese refugees, we're uh we're living in a community of third-world West Nile Africans called the Lugbara that no IMB team is targeting, like as a primary people group target. And no uh other no other major missions organizations are. They're doing some work there. And there's uh there's a couple of IMB families, international mission board families that are there and pioneers, if you're familiar with these missions agencies, you may not be. But uh another one is pioneers, people that are there doing work, good people, faithful people. Um, but a lot of them are focused on, a lot of them focused on or targeting Sudanese and South Sudanese refugees. So if you could imagine, if I could contextualize this to where we're at, in Western North Carolina, imagine that you said, I want to do ministry in Western North Carolina and the southern Appalachian region of North Carolina, but I really want to focus on the Cherokee people. Well, in in Western North Carolina, there is a there's a large reservation called the koala boundary, where a lot of Cherokee people live. And then there are pockets of Cherokee land everywhere else, like in my community here, we have uh there are pockets of Cherokee land. If you go over the snowbird mountain range to the other side, the snowbird community is predominantly Cherokee land. So imagine that Snowbird said, we want to do local ministry, but we really want to focus on the Cherokee. And to get to the Cherokee, we skipped over three trailer parks, four housing projects, and we neglected the needs of, you know, local people who weren't Cherokee, even though they're right here in front of us. Um that's that's the danger is when you just say we're gonna target this one people group and we're only gonna target those that are in refugee status, you end up, if you're not careful, if you're not careful, you end up neglecting a lot of ministry opportunities. So the Lord is is really uh impressed on Kilby and Greg that until they can live and be full-time in South Sudan, if that is ever to be in God's plan and if that's ever gonna happen, that while they're living in northern Uganda, they want to do their best to minister to the people that are predominantly inhabiting that region, that area, and that's the Lugbara people. So they minister among the Lugbara. And what that ministry looks like is church on Sunday. They have a church that they planted and that Greg pastors and leads called Mango Tree Church. And that's simply because that church started meeting under a mango tree on some uh rough-made benches, and uh and then uh they do Greg does prison ministry, Kilby does a children's ministry, and they do a lot of discipleship with with young men and women in that area, and then some partnerships with other churches and ministries in the area who are faithful, and then also they have a radio ministry. They're in Arua City, there's an there's a radio station that really is the only one in the West Nile region and really sends a signal into uh Congo, into South Sudan. They they reach a large area. And so they're super busy. Um and so they're working in that region, doing God's work, the work of spreading the gospel, making disciples, growing and training people, uh, and and uh putting Bibles in people's hands. Um they don't do Bible translation, but they do Bible distribution. And then the radio broadcast uh reaches a lot of people where sometimes they'll play um sermons from someone like John Piper or something like that, a faithful preacher. Uh, and then other times Greg will preach and share. And so that's that's sort of the the 30,000-foot view and scope of their ministry. And uh, and so over the last three months, there have been four ladies from Snowbird that have been living with them. Um, Gabby, Hannah, I just use first names. Gabby, Hannah, uh, McKenzie, and Sophie. Those four ladies have been uh who had served at Snowbird la for the last year or two, and then had spent this last semester living with and serving alongside of Greg and Kilby, being discipled, mentored in in the mission uh world and missions. And so it's been a it's been a very productive and awesome fall. And so thankful for the ministry opportunities that were there. Well, on uh Friday, November the 21st, Kilby and Greg were in the Capitol City where they were preparing on the 22nd to take those four young ladies to the airport to send them home after they had spent three months there. Those those ladies were going to be coming home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Their time there was done. So Kilby and Greg had come to the Capitol City, which is about a 10-hour drive from where they live. So they live in the northernmost part of Uganda. Uh they're kind of they're they're kind of north, uh West Nile is like northwestern Uganda, I think is the way, the way that would geographically um set up. So northwestern Uganda. If you're looking at a map, hold up your hand. Imagine your hand is the country of Uganda. They live like up in the in the uh if you're holding up your right hand, palm out, looking at your right hand. Right now, if you just hold up palm out, right hand, look at it, your index pointer finger in that top joint of that would be like where they live. And then the capital city is down at your wrist, the middle of your wrist. So I don't know, this is rough, rough. Just trying to give you a picture. In other words, they live in a pretty remote area. Uh, if you know missionaries or ministries that serve in Uganda, they probably serve in one of the larger cities in the south, the capital of Kampala, uh uh, Intebi, um, Ginja. There's several large areas that a ton of ministries serve and operate that are, I'm not throwing off, but a little more comfortable living uh conditions, a little more modern cities. It would feel there, there are a lot of more Western uh and modern amenities. And so up in the northern regions, whether you're in the area of West Nile or Kilbean Greg, serve with the Lugbara people or in uh the northeastern side and Karamoja or Kabong, those are more remote areas where people are still living a little bit, a little bit more primitively and just a rougher area. And so coming to the city is always a really enjoyable experience because you can get some good food in the Capitol. There is a shopping mall that's nicer than any mall I've ever been in in America. You know, I don't go to many malls. Um, very rare that I'm in a mall, but I've been in that mall in Kampala, and it's clearly a mall that's set to target wealthy people. So you've got the wealthy class that sort of run the government, large businesses, and then Western uh Western expats that live in in that in that city that do international business or something like that. And so in and around that mall, you've got nice restaurants, and it's just one little part of the city. So anytime Kilby and Greg can come to the city, they go and eat at a favorite restaurant by that mall, and then they'll spend some time in that mall. There's a a couple of um stores in that mall where they can get some things they need, kind of a mini version of a Walmart or something like that. And then also uh coffee shop and you know, good ice cream. So just kind of treating yourself and spend three months uh up in in their home area, and then about once a quarter, maybe make it down to the city for a restful weekend. Um so they had come down to the city to drop the girls off and to also get some rest. And about a month prior, Greg had had a pretty intense bout with malaria. Malaria is uh uh primarily, I believe, a mosquito-borne disease or illness. And it's, you know, I think the way I would describe malaria, the symptoms of malaria to somebody. Imagine the worst flu you've ever had. And I've never had the flu, um, but watching, and I've never had malaria. But I've treated my wife, you know, when when Little had malaria, and I've seen her have the flu, but only seen her have the flu one or two times, I think, in our 32 years almost of marriage. Um, and malaria is like the most severe flu you can imagine. When I see people that have gotten the flu, I hear that their body hurts, their joints ache, their head hurts, uh, a fever. Malaria is like that, and a severe case of malaria is all of that uh accelerated and like magnified. So Greg had had a really rough round of malaria, which is pretty common living in West Nile, the West Nile region of Uganda and in South Sudan. So Greg had had uh malaria. Kilby, many of you a couple years ago were praying with us for Kilby. She had contracted a really bad case of malaria in South Sudan, and they were having difficulty getting out of South Sudan to get to uh back into Uganda where there was a clinic and some treatment. South Sudan, by the way, is is far more primitive than where they're at in northern Uganda. And so malaria is tough. It's rough, and and and Greg had just had a round of malaria and had been super sick and had had had healed, but man, they were they were hurt, they were beat up and worn out. They were just kind of hurting. And so they had made a decision to come stateside for Thanksgiving and then maybe stay another week or two. They were going to spend two to three weeks here. They wanted to Be with their people there at Christmas. But since Thanksgiving is not a Ugandan holiday as we celebrate it, they were going to come home, spend Thanksgiving week here with us, and maybe another week or two and then fly back over for Christmas. And so they were not typically scheduled to be home at this time as they come home every two years. So they had made a decision to come home for Thanksgiving. And so on that Friday, they had gone to the city, were dropping the girls off to fly out on Saturday. They were going to wait till Sunday to fly out. And that way they could make sure the girls got out of there. If something happened with the girls' flight, the Greg and Kilby would still be in the city to help them, which ended up happening. The girls got their their flight got delayed from Saturday to Sunday. And so Greg and Kilby would have been there to help them. However, uh they were going to then fly out on Sunday and be here for a couple weeks. Well, on Friday, while they're all in the city, they had they had separated, split up to sort of run errands and pick up some things. And at that time, uh, and I was talking to Kilby during that time. She she and Greg weren't together. And at some point in there, she and I had a conversation, just making some plans because Little didn't know they were coming home. Nobody knew it was going to be a big surprise that they were coming home for Thanksgiving. And we were just going to, I was going to go get them from the airport and walk through the front door of the house and surprise Little. And uh we were real excited about that. So I was talking to Kilby, making some final arrangements on that Friday morning, November 21st. We hung up, got done talking. About an hour later, she called me back and she was frantic. And what had happened was Greg had collapsed in a public, uh, in a public market type, like a store, almost like a almost like a department store or a Walmart type store, something like that. Much smaller, but you get the picture. He had collapsed and nobody knew who he was and there was nobody around and he had gone unconscious and and he started having convulsions. And so he was, they they got him into a local clinic that was there attached to that mall. Didn't know what to do with him. Kilby was was calling for about 30 minutes. She kept calling his phone, couldn't get him, finally got him. Uh finally got a nurse that answered the phone and she said, Hey, we've got uh we've got him. This is where we're at. Uh, this is what's going on. And so they ended up, uh, thank the Lord, uh, a uh faithful couple, a pioneers missionary couple um named Carl and Rachel were there. They're they're really close friends with Kilby and Greg, and they helped get Kilby to the hospital. They moved Greg to the best hospital in the city to try to figure out what was going on with him. In that little narrow 30-minute to an hour window of time, a guy that uh that knows Greg, that Greg had had some work, had worked with some several years ago, um, but hadn't talked to in a long time, and who I Snowbird has had some history with. This guy was a missionary over there years ago, and um we actually uh did some did some things together, but had had not had much interaction with them, hadn't had no interaction with them over the last few years. That guy is now stateside, and he, I don't know how he caught wind of what was going on, but he posted uh a, he put a social media post up with a picture of Greg and Kilby and Alma, had a picture of Alma, my granddaughter, put a picture of them up and uh in a very sensational uh quote or however you post, I guess is the word you use. I'm not a social media guy. So a very sensational post about uh that Greg had cerebral malaria, which was deadly, which it is, but he said Greg had cerebral malaria. Well, Greg did not have cerebral malaria, and at that point we didn't know what he had, but he hadn't been been diagnosed with anything. We didn't know. He was having convulsions and not seizures we found out later. It's it was convulsions, which is different. And so um, when when that post went up, um we I knew what was going on because I had talked with Kilby. Little and I knew what was going on, but like my son uh Tucker didn't know, my daughter Laylee didn't know, Greg's mom didn't know. And so then people began calling them, saying, What's going on with Greg? And they're like, What are you talking about? Like Laley, my daughter, before we could even communicate with her, because we didn't know what was going on, we're trying to get facts in order. She gets a call from uh one of the snowbird ladies, and and they're talking, and she said, Man, that's crazy what's going on with Greg. And Laley said, What are you talking about? And this girl said, Uh, have you not seen the post? And so that post that the guy made had gone, I mean, it it went crazy. It went all over the place, uh, saying that Greg had a deadly case of cerebral malaria. And so they just kind of created some confusion, some chaos. Um, and and so we didn't, we didn't know what was going on, didn't know what Greg had. And so he then the next few days, when so many of y'all were praying and and we were we've been posting updates on Snowbird's social media. Isa and Austin have been posting those updates where I'll just record it on my phone, send it to them, and they'll post it. And it was uh it was it was very scary. Greg was in a coma. He he spent seven hours convulsing, and I saw video of that, and it's just like he's unconscious, his eyes are rolled back, but he's like his his limbs are stiff and just thrashing. Really scary, really scary stuff. And uh, and so that was on Friday the 21st. And so they got him sedated, got him in an induced coma, and that's where he spent the next few days. Um and so in that time, a lot of tests were run, EEGs, brain scans, um, MRI, and just trying to figure out what's going on, and and and still, to be honest, y'all, we still don't know exactly what was going on. Um But I do want to share one one burden and and point of prayer that we think is is a is a possibility. I think Greg's convinced. I I'm not convinced. I uh it's I want to be careful um that we don't you know just kind of self-diagnose what's going on. So we're still trying to get Greg in to see the best specialists that we can now that he's stateside, and I'll explain how that happened. But um there's a fear that maybe what happened was that Greg was poisoned by a Lugbara man who had made a threat on Greg's life. He had threatened Greg and a couple of Greg's Lugbara of Greg's Lug Greg and Kilby's Lugbara friends and partners, ministry partners there in Arua. This guy had a couple days, uh just three or four days before this, he had threatened their lives. He said, I'm gonna kill you. And poisoning's a real common practice. It's kind of crazy to us in the West to think, what? But just, yeah, a little rat poison, and it's a different kind of rap poison than we have here. It's something that's produced in China that's not allowed in this country because it's such a uh a deadly toxin. Just a pinch of this powder on your skin can can send you into convulsions. And if you ingest a milligram of it, it'll kill you. And so there's a there's a concern. Did did maybe did maybe this this man who made this threat, did he maybe poison Greg? We don't know. We're still trying to get to the bottom of all that. Um, but you can pray specifically for that because if he did, there could be long-term neurological effects. And so Greg's doing good. He he was uh he you know, he was really scattered in his brain once he came out of the coma after several days, um, and and which he did after about five days. He he was he was alert and talking, and and it's funny, you probably saw he made a few uh social media posts that were you kind of like, man, this doesn't sound like Greg. This seems a little off, and it's because he was really having a hard time communicating. And so he's he's doing much better now. He's really made progress. But we were able, by God's grace and strength and power, by the power of Almighty God, they were able to fly home um on Monday, December 1st. And so a week ago, they flew home. We got him home, but it's been a difficult time uh because Greg was, gosh, he's on he's traveling with a bladder catheter, um, with some uh some residual uh physical and bodily trauma from the convulsions and the thrashing and you know um his his body taking a beaten and um and some wounds that were the result of what had happened there. And um again, by the Lord's grace, by his mighty power and grace, Greg didn't have any brain injury or uh head injury, no head trauma. He didn't like hit his head. There's some there's some some concern about brain trauma if if he indeed was poisoned, if there's a toxin, but there's no cerebral malaria and he didn't hit his head. So that was God's just favoring grace. And so he they flew home Monday, and this is where uh just kind of wrap wrap up where we're at with with uh what happened when they got home Monday, because the next few days were just really wild and just really cool to see the Lord work. Um but I want to share that and then give you how you can be praying moving forward. So we went to pick them up from the airport on Monday, and on the way to the airport, a board member, a snowbird board member board member called me and he said, Hey, I got a really good friend who's uh who's in administrative uh management at Duke Medical, and he I think he could help Greg and we get him in to see the infectious disease specialists at Duke, which turns out are some of the most uh proficient, like expert in the world. This department, the infectious disease department at Duke is literally world renowned. So on Monday, now y'all listen, this is this this is the coolest part of this story to me. On Monday, this is how God works. We're on our way to the airport, get a get a call from my buddy who's a board member at Snowbird. He connects me with this guy. We had stopped, Little and I had stopped at a at a uh Walmart uh just north of Atlanta to buy diapers, some winter clothes, because they had basically come with the clothes on their back and a and an overnight bag. So let's get some, you know, let's get some uh underwear and toiletries and diapers for the baby and some warm clothes for the baby and um and some snacks and things. And and uh so we had stopped, we're in a store, and we were about two hours from needing to pick them up, and Duke, Duke calls me, the the the vice president over this department at Duke called me. He said, I'm gonna connect you with uh with a guy who's over infectious disease. And uh, and he did, and and I ended up on the phone with that dude, and we and he said, Can you have Greg here Wednesday? This was on Monday evening. And I said, like 48 hours from now, he said, Yeah. And I said, Yeah, we'll be there. And so that was gonna be get him from Atlanta back home to Andrews and then drive to Durham, which for us is about a six-hour drive um across the state of North Carolina. And so we're in the westernmost part of the state. Duke is way towards the east. It's definitely east. There's uh a pretty good distance. And so, yeah, we'll we'll get up. Uh he said, if you could have him here at one o'clock on Wednesday. And so Greg's not even off the plane yet, you know, and I'm like, okay, we're gonna do it, we'll go for it. And so um picked Greg and Kilby up from the airport. Uh they were, as you can imagine, 24 hours of tri or about 30 hours of travel at this point. Um, and he's been out of a coma just for a couple days at that point, and man, he's lost 30 pounds and it was it was rough. And so we got him from the airport, got him in the car, got him in the van. Uh, we we took a camp van down there, and that way they could spread out and sleep on bench seats in that van if they needed to, and um drove them home. On the drive home, I remembered that Jeff Garner, who is our transportation director at Snowbird, that's Adam Garner's dad. If you're a snowbird person and you know these names, if not, Jeff is uh he's over all of our transportation, which is a pretty big department at Snowbird. Lots of buses, vans, trucks, um, vehicles, boats. So Jeff's over all that. He manages all that. And so Jeff has uh Jeff and his wife Katura have a uh have a have are friends with a couple, and the man is a charter pilot. He he he he charters private flights. This guy had a 15-year career as an F-16 fighter pilot. He went from that into flying uh A-330 Airbuses for Delta, a very accomplished pilot and who's flown combat missions. Uh, he's a combat veteran. And he now charters, and he he had been at Snowbird this past summer just to see the work and to meet us. And Jeff had introduced me to him, and he said in that conversation, if I can ever do anything to help y'all, let me know. So I called Jeff and I said, Do you think Ken could help help us? You think he could fly Greg to Durham on Wednesday? I don't know that he can stand up to another, you know, to a 12 hours in a car on Wednesday, six hours out, six hours back. Jeff said, let me call him. And so within, within 10 minutes, Jeff called me back, said, Call Ken. He's he's good to go. He's gonna do it. So that was on Monday night, on last Wednesday, Ken flew his twin turboprop, twin engine, Cessna 410, 420. I forget what the title is a really nice plane. Landed that thing at the uh Andrews Airport, and uh me and Greg jumped in with him. An hour later, he touched down 30 minutes outside of Durham and he had a rental car waiting, and he dropped us off at the front door of the Duke Clinic. Uh, we went in for uh blood work and evaluations. That's where we were able to rule out uh cerebral malaria. And so what that doctor said was, we don't know what has caused all of this. And so we just got to keep chipping away at it. He said, We're kind of out of my area of expertise now. I can tell you that your blood work's clear. You did not get uh cerebral malaria, you have not uh contracted something like Ebola or Zika virus or anything like that. Um so uh so we'll we will um refer you to a neurosurgeon. So next steps for us will be uh to see a neurosurgeon at Duke, a neurologist, rather, to see a neurologist and get Greg's brain really evaluated and examined to see if there's a toxin, maybe if he was poisoned or if some other virus. But um anyway, a lot of a lot of question marks and very few answers. Um, but it was crazy. We spent two hours at Duke, drove back, got an airplane, and we're home for supper. That's the way to travel, boys and girls. I'll tell you that. Now, that private flying like that, that was awesome. That dude, Ken, was the man. He was awesome. And that plane was uh it was like a uh uh six-seater, but it was like the pilot and co-pilot could sit up front, but then you had the four seats in the back that were like two seats facing each other and lots of legroom. And man, it was awesome. Like the seats reclined. It was we were we were traveling in style. Uh we stayed awake the whole way. We're we were watching the state of North Carolina, greatest state in the union, if you ask me. And uh, and so we were watching it, we're flying over all the mountains and taking video and picking out, oh, look, there's my cousin's house. There's there's where my folks live. Oh, there's my house. It was pretty cool. Um, but anyhow, we uh when we left uh Duke, that doc said, hey, you need to go see a urologist because Greg seems to have a urinary tract infection from where they had had him catheterized during all of his uh his coma, you know. And so um I got a a friend and brother named Kyle, who's a PA, uh works at a hospital close to Andrews, down at Union County Hospital in Blairsville, Georgia. And he has an intern named Dylan, who's a strong believer who has a lot of snowbird ties. And so we flew back on Wednesday, we flew out to Durham and back, and then on Thursday of last week, we went and saw Kyle and Dylan, and uh they got Greg uh taken care of, got the catheter removed, got him flushed and got some antibiotics and and have him on his way to good good health. Uh, and he's gained about four pounds of that 31 pounds he lost. Um, so slowly kind of recovering, but he's still very weak. And uh the big question mark now is uh his his neurological health. Is his brain okay? Greg's concerned that he could be looking at, you know, if he was poisoned, one of the effects of this particular poison that that these people, the Luke Bar, have access to this rat poison is uh long-term uh epileptic type um condition. And so you can pray specifically for that. Pray for Greg's peace of mind. We had a good conversation on last Friday just saying, hey man, um God's not called you to live in fear. You you've you've lived your life boldly and with courage for the gospel. And so um just let's trust that the Lord uh let's let's trust the Lord's in control of this. And so that's what we're praying through right now. And you can pray for Greg's strength and and uh and and faith. And uh he he and Kilby are holding up strong. And um, so what we need now is some that that last final piece is some answers to his neurological health and and recovery. The only thing I want to add is this as a dad, you're proud of your kid when they hit a home run or spike a volleyball or when they make an A, you know, they come home with a 4.0 their first semester of college or run touchdowns on ESPN, whatever. You fill in the blank. Um proud of my all my kids for things they've accomplished. I'm gonna tell you what though, my daughter Kilby, um what she did in holding their lives together while Greg was in a coma, she's she is pregnant. She's almost five months pregnant, and she's got an 18-month-old kid, uh, my granddaughter, who I call Punky, and uh Alma Ruth, and they were they were in living in a third-world chaos with uh no understanding of what was going on with with Papa, with daddy and husband. Um Alma calls Greg Papa, that's instead of dad or daddy, that's what they say over there. And so um just crazy, crazy time. And and Kilby just, man, I'm so proud of her because she was having to over there you have to pay, she she had to pay the daily hospital bill to keep them in the hospital and um and and making housing, you know, arrangements for where her and Alma could stay. And um anyway, just real proud of my girl and and uh thankful that they're here. We got them home and and that that's for the for the near future anyway. I don't know how long they'll be home. I would imagine no less than a couple months, um maybe longer, to see see how recovery comes. And so Greg's almost back to his his self. He's uh like when you talk to him, you'll you'll you'll maybe catch some short-term memory stuff that's that's lacking. But for the most part, he's like like he and I have spent a lot of time together over the last week, uh flew to Duke together, drove, you know, drove to the hospital a couple times together, been to different doctors' appointments and um and then just running errands and taking care of things. And he's almost back to his normal self. It's good to see. I'm just thankful, praising the Lord and rejoicing. Um and the and the I said saying that about Kilby was the last thing. The last thing I want to say is this. The way that y'all rallied around our family and have continued to pray and send words of encouragement. Um, I think about$15,000 have come in, which is phenomenal because uh the amount of travel, the insurance deductibles, um, medical treatment in Uganda. I think the the Uganda, the Ugandan hospital bill was about three or four thousand dollars. Um flights home were you know about three thousand dollars. We got him upgraded. We got them upgraded on one of their flights to business class so he could recline and it was a lot more comfortable. Um, we couldn't get it on the other one, but anyway, that that that cost about$600 more per person. And the money's come in that's just helped make this all um so much more doable and manageable. And uh Red Oak Church, our home church, their sending church has been phenomenal. Um, now that they're home, uh there's been a meal train put together, somebody's bringing food every night. And um, they're, you know, on top of everything, they're jet, they were jet lagged all last week. And it's been rough, but uh just reminded the faithfulness of God's people and reminded through all this of the cost of the gospel, y'all. Um people say, why would you be a missionary and go to a third world country? Well, because we've been commanded to do that in scripture. We may not all physically go, but what I've seen is that picture of those that are senders rather than goers have done their part over the last two weeks, sending money, sending words of encouragement, using resources like airplanes and and doctor connections. And God's people have really come together and and and and rallied around my family and the snowbird community, and I'm grateful. So we'll keep you informed, keep you posted. Um close with uh a passage of scripture. You know, I said in the Thanksgiving episode that Thanksgiving's my favorite holiday, and that that that is true, but this particular Thanksgiving was rough, y'all. Um it was it was a tough, it was a tough week. Um But first Thessalonians chapter five, um, Paul writes this verse beginning in verse 16. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. It's a words of encouragement, and in everything we're to give thanks and we're to rejoice at God's goodness. And you know, there's that there's a verse in that same passage that that that talks about repaying evil for evil, and you know, it's uh um I I don't I don't want to wish evil on anyone, but if Greg was poisoned, we pray for justice and that God would remove any obstacle for ministry to continue or give them a clear path forward in a different direction. And so um just rejoicing and giving thanks. That's been the cry and the song of our hearts over these last uh couple of weeks and pray that it'll continue to be. And ask y'all to keep keep praying. And we'll keep keep our hand of the plow on this end, you keep your hand to the plow where you're at. And everybody here is on mission for the kingdom, and we got work to do. If you're a school teacher, if you're a nurse, if you're a truck driver, a mechanic, um whatever your job is, if you're in ministry or not, we got kingdom work to do, y'all. And uh, and so let's be about it. Let's be, let's be about doing the work that God's called us to do. And remember that the gospel, the gospel costs a lot. Um people get real consumed and caught up in in money and finances. And do I have enough to retire? Or can we live comfortably? Can we build the house we want to build? Can we finish out our days on earth in comfort? Or you know, can I make medical arrangements for, you know, if I get dementia, or when when I'm old so that my kids aren't burdened and strapped? And I mean, there's a lot that we can worry about and fret about, but sometimes what we need to do is pause and remember the cost of the gospel and why we're here on this earth and remember Paul's words to the Thessalonians. Rejoice in everything and in everything give thanks. This is God's will for us to rejoice, to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks. This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. So let's do those three things this week and um and let's all be about the work that God's called us to be about. Thank you for being on this journey with us the last couple of weeks, and uh we'll give you, we'll we'll keep you updated as as time progresses. Keep praying, and uh we'll we'll be in touch and and keep you guys updated through those uh those social media updates that we've been posting. Anytime there's something to post, we'll keep posting those. So that's the plan. Love you guys, appreciate you, and uh we'll see you next week.

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