The Abscessed Tooth: Operating on myself in the night.
With weeks remaining to me on two ministry trips, I awoke in the night with an abscessed tooth. My jaw and the side of my head was swollen. Strong men and gunfighters died in the Wild West era of the United States, from an abscessed tooth, and, by comparison, I was "on the frontier", so to speak, in that this kind of medical help is not readily available and, often, is not very modern. The situation became so desperate that I began looking through my things to try and find something that would enable me to pull my own tooth. I began trying to loosen the tooth in its socket, but I was not making any progress in my efforts to help myself. Finally, I prayed. Joshua was with me on one of these occasions, and we prayed together. This was at a time when I also had other negative symptoms, including swelling in my left foot and leg, and an infection, with a red line coming higher and higher, accompanied by nausea, etc. I told the Lord that I could cut short my ministry trip, and return home with the testimony that God did not keep me healthy on the trip, and that I really needed His help, if I were to not return home, embarrassed. I finally fell asleep, and awakened with the pain and symptoms gone, and the swelling on my face, returned to normal. On one of the trips, out of 49 days in Nigeria, I was sick for a total of 1 hour!!! God has truly kept us in a cocoon of His protection, His provision, and His power!