September 2011 Report

Dear Brethren,              

            On August 1^st the IBTM Africa Campaign team prepared to depart.  But the plane bound for Johannesburg, South Africa, sat on the tarmac with all the passengers and crew on board.  It was ready to go - all except for the storm overheard.  After a two hour delay, the flight took to the skies and on to its destination – only not to its original destination.  The flight now was bound for Paris, France.  On arrival in Paris, there were flights available that evening – but not to Johannesburg.  That connecting flight would not be available until the next morning and so there was an overnight stay in Paris. The campaign group finally made it to Johannesburg and then the final connections were made to Livingstone, Zambia.  Everyone one was happy – except some of the team didn’t have their luggage. With the luggage recovered and day and a half lost in weather delays, the team made it and began their work in Zambia.

            Many missions trip begin or are interrupted with events such as this.  This is an aspect of every mission trip that one must look forward to as a missionary.  It happens!  Fortunately, it does not happen all the time.  But this time, I missed all of this excitement. I was not able to leave for Zambia on this mission trip August 1.

            After returning from a mission trip to Australia, New Zealand, and American Samoa earlier this year, I felt terrible and went to see my family doctor. It was determined that I had thyrotoxicosis. It seems that my thyroid doctor gave me an extremely high dosage of synthroid and it went toxic in my system. After having my liver, heart, kidneys, and seemingly ever other part of my body checked out, I was found to be in good shape – except the thyrotoxicosis gave me anemia and my hemoglobin dropped considerably.  My family doctor got my thyroid medicine under control and I am now taking prescription iron for the anemia, which I understand takes a few months to get over.  I am now feeling better. (How do doctors determine whether you are getting well?  They weigh your wallet.) 

            So the reason I did not make the trip to Zambia this year was precautionary.  My family doctor reasoned that if I needed a blood transfusion due to the anemia that I would not want to have one in Africa.  He was right. And due to the fatigue, lack of vitality, rapid heart rate, etc., I truly have not felt like producing a newsletter for a few months.  I beg your forgiveness please.

            But now that I am feeling better, I am gearing up for Africa next year.  I am raising funds for books for students of the International College of the Bible, Bibles for the peoples of Africa, good, used suits for the students of schools of preaching, postage to get these materials overseas, and personal support (I am down about 35% from last year). 

            Brethren, I sincerely ask your continued prayers for these good works.  I also

thank those of you that continue to support this work.  The needs are there and prayer does change things.  Consider letting me come and present this work to you.

            May our God be with each of you.

In Christ Who Saves,

Jimmie B.Hill

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Greetings from Georgia!

I always liked math . . . until I took college statistics ages ago.  For the first time I found numbers boring.  Charts and graphs of business revenues or people surveyed were mind-numbing.  I mention this tidbit of trivia because one of the things I do for IBTM is keep the statistics on our work - and suddenly those numbers are not boring at all!  In fact, I find them fascinating.  I quickly realized what made the difference – my statistics each have a soul attached.

Take our websites, for instance.  When I say that they have gotten 32,500 visits this year, there’s a person reading the Gospel on their computer screen every time.   Of the 195 nations who have sent visitors, USA is #1 which no surprise. 

But I was surprised that of the 775 US cities who sent visitors, none sent as many as Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya), Harare (Zimbabwe), Lahore (Pakistan), Manila (Philippines) or New Delhi (India) did.  Yet China really surprised me.  In many nations our visitors are limited to just the capital, or a handful of the larger cities.  But our visitors from China have been from 224 cities scattered all over that country.  In all so far this year our visitors have come from at least 2,081 different cities around the

world.  And the traffic to the website just keeps increasing.

Our correspondence students do, too.  We now have over 900 online students from 96 nations enrolled.  That just blows me away because our online program really didn’t get into full swing until February.  But it has been keeping me and our great team of teachers busy ever since.

The Internet is truly an amazing thing.  How else could I or someone else like me be at home in Georgia, or vacationing in another state, or traveling to another country and still teach someone the Gospel of Christ on the other side of the world?  It’s a teaching tool that we really need to use more for the Lord.

Speaking of home, this summer has been difficult since Jimmie’s recovery from first the thyrotoxicosis and now anemia has been so slow.  He isn’t quite there yet, but he is definitely better.  Please continue to keep both him and our work in your prayers.

In Christian love,

Linda Hill

Two Steps Forward . . .

Jimmie's health has been the primary topic of just about every conversation we've had in the last 15 weeks.  That's difficult for a guy who is generally pretty healthy.  Of the problems caused by the thyroid medicine overdose, the anemia has been the hardest to correct.  Jimmie's improvement has typically been measured in hours, followed by days of total exhaustion again.  Very frustrating.  But FINALLY something good to report - he has had TWO good days in a row.  He put the extra energy to good use as well by writing a new article.  (See the Featured Article tab.)

Maybe he can stretch this rebound into a streak and we can do a newsletter soon.

- Linda

Good News Again

The latest bloodwork this week revealed that Jimmie's thyroid level is back to normal at last.  Fantastic!  Now all he has to deal with is the anemia that was apparently caused by the high thyroxin levels.  The doctor has stepped up the effort to increase his hemoglobin, so hopefully Jimmie will begin to feel better soon.  But I'm told that recovering from anemia is a slow process.

Ron Gilbert and the rest of the campaign group are in Zambia right now, so please keep them in your prayers.

- Linda

Good News

A gastroenterologist tooks pictures yesterday of the typical places Jimmie might be loosing blood internally and found nary a trace of it.  I took that as very good news!  (Jimmie was a tad loopy most of the day from the anestesia he was given so he didn't even remember that the doctor talked to us - but he took my word for it later.)  So I believe that puts us back at my original conclusion - all of Jimmie's scary symptoms and sickness in the past 7 weeks have been entirely due to the long-term overdose of medication.  I hope that this latest reduction in the dosage will be what was needed to put Jimmie on a healthy track again.  Your continued prayers on his behalf would be greatly appreciated.

- Linda

Bad News

In the 5 weeks since our family doctor realized that the amount of thyroid replacement medicine Jimmie was prescribed had become toxic to him, Jimmie has improved some.  Learning that his heart had not been damaged  was fantastic news!  Getting his blood pressure back into normal range and fluctuation was also a huge relief!  But overall the improvement in how he feels has been like an incredibly slow roller-coaster.  One day his exhaustion, shortness of breath and dizziness recedes enough that he is sure recovery has arrived.  The next day they hit him again with a vengeance.  So we were not surprised at all last week when Jimmie's newest blood panels showed that the current level of thyroid med is STILL toxic.  The dosage was reduced again - still high but not as high.  This slow backdown on the drug has seemed very strange to me since it is a drug-overdose that is making him sick, but the fear that a cancer cell could be lurking somewhere in his body was the reason given.

However, we were very surprised by another level in Jimmie's recent bloodwork.  5 weeks ago the doctor told Jimmie that he was slightly anemic - not enough to get concerned about, just something that would need checking when everything else got corrected.  I read up about anemia online and learned that it was likely responsible for all of his symptoms.  I also learned that it is always caused by something else and the short list of causes included hyperthyroidism - so the overdose of med was probably responsible for the shortage of hemoglobin as well.  But last week the anemia had gotten worse - definitely not what we expected - and suddently our family doctor was very concerned.  Now he is on a quest to be sure that Jimmie isn't loosing blood internally, so Jimmie will be having 2 different procedures on Tuesday to check for that.  The doctor agreed that the medicine is probably still the culprit, but he doesn't want to assume that and possibly miss another, more urgent cause.

Our doctor was also very concerned about Jimmie's planned campaign trip to Africa for the month of August.  Departure on August 1st is just 4 weeks away and, as the doctor pointed out, Jimmie's condition isn't stable yet.  Flying off to remote areas of Zambia and Ghana where medical facilities are either substandard or nonexistent would not be a good move.  He also told us that if the anemia gets worse again Jimmie will be needing blood transfusions and with 40% of the African population HIV positive, that is NOT the place to get one of those.  Jimmie pointed out that he does have MedJet insurance that would fly him to a better hospital if needed - probably South Africa - but I'm afraid our doctor was not impressed with that as an option.  Neither was I.  And really, neither was Jimmie, but it is hard for a missionary to give up a planned mission trip.  His heart has been in missions since our first campaign to Ghana in 1983, and working in Africa has been one of his greatest joys for just as long.  Still, Jimmie understood the wisdom of getting his body healed before heading there again.  At his doctor's recommendation Jimmie is reluctantly cancelling his campaign to Africa for 2011. 

Disappointed but not undone, Jimmie is already talking about 2012.

- Linda

3 Years!

I just realized that I missed an anniversary!  I began this blog on May 31, 2008, as a way for Jimmie and me to more easily stay in touch with those interested in our work.  3 years and 165 posts later I'm still blogging. 

My first entry was the story of our first foreign campaign in 1983 - the 6 weeks in Ghana that still spring to mind as our Campaign to Gehenna.  Even though the 3 weeks of traveling in the South Pacific that we just completed were physically more gruelling, it still holds first place on my Worst Ever list.  Fortunately, no other campaign has ever come close to it in terms of stress, although the aftermath of Hurricane Ofa in American Samoa was another experience I hope to never repeat . . . but we lived on the island of Tutuila then, so it wasn't a campaign.  Still, re-reading this post just a few minutes ago reminded me of two things. 

1. In the 28 years since Jimmie and I began doing mission work we have always tried to concentrate on the positive.  We don't normally report when things get bad or people get ugly unless it is necessary news.  Even in talking about the Gehenna campaign there was so much more that was distressing that I didn't mention.  At times I have thought that may be a mistake, particularly if it adds to the misconception that campaigns are just another word for vacation.  (I've definitely never been on that kind before!)  Then I read a mission report where the writer did nothing but complain . . . .  I'll stay on the bright side whenever possible, thank you.
2. When I began this blog I planned to include some stories from past mission days. Woefully, I haven't done much of that.  But we lived in the South Paicific for 5 years and Jimmie has been on a whole slew of campaigns - so stories we have.  Stories like when he got pelted with rocks by a Baptist preacher in Ghana or a man stuck a shotgun in his face in Samoa to try to stop a Bible study.  I really need to get him busy writing some of these down for me.

- Linda

June 2011 Report

Dear Brethren,

Linda and I, along with Ron and Caroline Gilbert, had a most successful trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Pago Pago, American Samoa. But instead of writing the details of that mission trip here, I would direct you to read of all our efforts on our blog, http://www.hillmission.blogspot.com. We sincerely thank all who made this mission trip possible. May our God continue to bless each of you.

On my next mission trip, in conjunction with my work, International Bible Teaching Ministries, I have the opportunity to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Livingstone, Zambia and Nkoranza, Ghana. During this mission effort, we will be holding Gospel meetings in Masika, Siamafumba, and Livingstone, teach classes in the Zambia School of Biblical Studies and the Siamafumba School of Biblical Studies. We will also teach classes in the International College of the Bible, and do many one-on-one Bible studies. In Nkoranza, Ghana we will also hold Gospels meetings and teach daily classes for the brethren. I will have the pleasure to work with brother Ronald Gilbert, brother Barry Gilreath, and brother and sister Rusty and Laura Stark. Brother Gilbert and I will then be going on to Ghana from Zambia. I will be leaving the States August 01 and returning August 30, 2011.

I need to raise $4,000.00 for airfare, food, and lodging for this effort. If you can help with supplying these funds, please send your contributions to the Hill Mission Fund, NEW HOPE ROAD CHURCH OF CHRIST, Post Office Box 1334, Dacula, Georgia 30019 and make out your checks to Hill Mission Fund – Africa.

In addition to the $4,000.00, I am also trying to raise money for Bibles and bicycles for the work. We can buy and ship a paperback NKJV New Testament for $1.76 and a complete NKJV Bible for $3.50. We can also purchase hardbound Bibles in the native tongues of the people for about $10.00 each. We purchase bicycles for each graduate of the two schools of preaching so that they can reach the lost in the bush areas of their nations. The cost of these bicycles ranges from $100.00 to $120.00. If you wish to send money for bicycles or Bibles, please know that every penny you send will be spent only on those items.

Thank you once again for your continued support and thank you once again, in advance, for helping with this mission effort in Africa. You, indeed, are the backbone of our work together for the Lord. If you have any questions, please contact me via post, email, or by phone. We would be glad to talk with you.

In Christ Who Saves,
Jimmie B.Hill

 
 

Greetings from Georgia!

I can’t believe our campaign ended 3 weeks ago. In many ways it was absolutely wonderful and in others it was excruciatingly difficult. Meeting new brethren and reacquainting with old friends was a joy. Traveling over 25,000 miles in 3 weeks while dealing with sickness, exhaustion and stressful situations was not. And since our return we have continued to be swamped. Two of my duties with IBTM are assigning online BCC students to a teacher when they enroll and assisting teachers when they have problems. I managed to keep those current during the trip, but all of my record-keeping and statistical chores were quietly multiplying in Georgia. It took me a week to catch up and before I finished a new problem had hit.

Four days after our return Jimmie suddenly became very ill - exhausted to the extreme, hurt all over and had trouble breathing. He had fought a chest cold while on campaign so now figured it had turned to infection. I made him an appointment with our family doctor and drove him to it expecting to head home later with antibiotics. But Jimmie didn’t even make it to the examining room before he had the staff in a tizzy. The nurse took his blood pressure, shook her head muttering “that can’t be right”, changed equipment and took it again, then again. She grabbed another nurse to take it who had an identical reaction – then took off down the hall to get the doctor. When he got the same thing, Jimmie said the doctor became visibly upset and sprang into action. I was waiting in the examining room wondering what was going on, so was very surprised when Jimmie arrived with an EKG machine being wheeled in right behind him. When that charted as normal the doctor jumped on the phone with a cardiologist, then ordered us to the hospital for blood work. I’m afraid that Jimmie and I were completely baffled by this point. As our doctor explained, we just did not understand how strange Jimmie’s blood pressure reading was. The two numbers – systolic and diastolic – are supposed to go up or down together but Jimmie’s had split. The top number was a bit high, but the bottom number had dropped extremely low. This is a very rare occurrence that indicates heart problems.

Just minutes after returning home from the hospital lab the doctor called with the results. The thyroid replacement medicine Jimmie takes had become toxic in his blood. The doctor had already talked with Jimmie’s endocrinologist and the dosage was being reduced, but there was still the fear that Jimmie’s heart had been damaged by it. (The endocrinologist had kept Jimmie on a double dose since his thyroid was removed almost 3 years ago to prohibit the growth of new thyroid cells that might be cancerous.) Minutes after that we got word that the cardiologist wanted Jimmie in his office now, as soon as we could get there. So began a slew of tests over the next week. ALL came back GOOD. Not only did the doctor not find damage, he said that Jimmie’s heart is in great shape. For that we thank God and all of you who prayed for him! Jimmie continues to feel better each day as the toxicity decreases.

Back at work, the statistics I keep show tremendous growth in our outreach this year. We’ve had website visits from 185 nations with more than 4,000 souls now coming monthly to read the Gospel materials. 400+ students from 64 nations have enrolled in IBTM’s online Bible correspondence program while 150 brethren from 13 nations are taking college-level courses with ICOTB. These and other stats are very exciting! But doing this mission takes money - money to live and money to work. Support for both of these areas is severely lacking and of great concern. Please pray that we will be able to continue this effort.

In Christian love,
Linda Hill