UPDATE: See related links below on medical missionary Dr. Peter Stafford who has tested positive for Ebola. He is reportedly receiving care at a hospital in Germany, according to the latest report from Serge missions agency.
I am writing this week about finding hope in surprising places. Today, we’ll consider the most surprising place of all.
To set the context: At this writing (May 20), at least 136 people have died in the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but health officials say the number could be much higher. The director general of the World Health Organization said he is “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic,” which is being caused by a type of Ebola for which there are no vaccines or treatments.
SIGN UP for our weekly Highlights emails.
The virus is not airborne but is highly contagious through direct contact with bodily fluids. Its later symptoms are terrifying, with internal bleeding, multi-organ failure, severe dehydration, and cardiovascular collapse leading to death. An American doctor in Congo is among the newly confirmed cases of the virus.
Reading bad news can steal your hope:
- A father of two young daughters was killed by a great white shark while spearfishing with friends near Australia’s southwest coast.
- Massive storms across the central US placed nearly 120 million people at risk of severe weather.
- More than 40,000 people were evacuated in Southern California as over twenty thousand acres of wildfires burned across the region.
- Researchers have identified Hantavirus hot spots in Virginia, Colorado and Texas. Some strains can have a fatality rate as high as 50 percent.
- Cuba has reportedly acquired more than 300 military drones and has been discussing plans to use them to attack the US military and possibly Key West, Florida.
The good news is that there is a way to navigate bad news with the best news of all.
Full story.
See related headline:
PRAY: American medical missionary infected in Ebola outbreak in Africa -CBN
American missionary doctor contracts Ebola as Congo outbreak intensifies -Christianity Today
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Jim Denison and originally published by Denison Forum.
