E. coli: escherichia coli – a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, non-sporulating bacterium commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals. E. coli comes in many different strains, most of which are harmless, and actually benefit the host.

But to most of us nowadays, hearing “E. coli” strikes a chord of fear, reminding us of massive recalls of hamburger, spinach and so on, and the sickness and death that go along with such contaminations. These are the bad E. coli strains, that cause the great majority of gastrointestinal infections – i.e. food poisoning.

Guatemala is a fertile breeding ground for bad E. coli.

You’ll remember from an earlier post (see “Facts and Figures” below), that diarrhea is the leading cause of death in Guatemalan children under the age of 5. It’s the third leading cause of death in the general population of Guatemala. Bad E. coli at work.

You’ve read about pigs in people’s backyards, and field workers living in shanties with no bathrooms, and about barefoot kids running through puddles leaking from outhouses. And you’ve heard me say a couple of times how we team members were repeatedly warned not to drink the water, eat the local food (especially produce) or even brush our teeth with tap water. And our tap water, at the La FeViva conference center where we stayed was coming from a well that was over 50 feet deep!

Somehow, some way, some bad E. coli came home with me from Guatemala. It could have been from singing in the shower (one sure way to distract myself from the fact that we had no hot water!). It could have been something I ate. But more than likely it was from touching so many Guatemalan people.

My role in the team was just getting to be me (see “What I Did There” below). I was having fun connecting with the people, with the culture. But I did touch. I did hug. I did slap hands, and hold babies. Sure, I had little bottles of disinfectant, but I couldn’t be using that every minute or two!

Anyway, by the time I got back to the USA, I had fever, headache, diarrhea, and a few other annoying symptoms. Then they went away. A few weeks later a different set of symptoms came around. A round of antibiotics knocked it out – or so we thought. A few weeks after that, I was back in the doctor’s office (he’s become a very good friend:)) with another set of symptoms, and just generally not feeling good – but nothing we could really nail down.

Two days later, right in the middle of playing with the kids, it hit me like a boulder! Super headache (I never get headaches), too dizzy to stand up, big time fever. I crashed hard, and lay all night long burning up or shaking with chills.

Next morning, it took the doctor about 5 minutes to run a quick test and tell me I had an E. coli infection that had spread into my kidneys and from there into my blood stream. Apparently E. coli can be good at playing hide and seek with antibiotics. Thankfully another double dose round, and I was feeling fine 5 days later.

Believe it or not, this wasn’t the end of my E. coli battle – it popped up one more time in similar fashion – but I won’t bore you with more health report details. Suffice to say, some months later, my body is whole and healthy.

In Guatemala, with the lack of health care, especially in rural areas, I very likely could have died.

And that’s my real point here, my friends. People in Guatemala need help with really basic things – like water purification methods, knowledge of basic personal health and sanitation, even just having toothbrushes. Everything, anything we can do to help break the cycle of pollution, poverty and ignorance, is taking them one more step toward not needing our help, toward being able to take care of themselves. And in the process, we’re touching lives in very deep, very real ways – and that can have eternal significance.

At the end of the last clinic day, as we were wrapping things up, I reached out to shake the hand of one of the Guatemalans who had been helping us that day. Instinctively he pulled back, and said something like, “No way, man! You’ve been touching all those people out on the street.” I’m not passing judgment on him – he was just doing what he felt was safe by his standards.

But I will say this: I would not have changed anything I did while I was with those wonderful people in Guatemala, because as Patrick I believe it was later said, “They are worth it. They deserve to be loved.” And the people of Guatemala, even those carrying all sorts of E. coli bacterium, are just as important to God as you or I.

Jesus would have touched them and loved on them, and so would I.