 Edwards spent a year in intensive study of early Church history, then began to seek out anyone who had known Watchman Nee and his church planting ministry in China.He first sought the company of Beta Sheirich, a former co-worker of Nee's who had returned from China to a fellowship in Louisville, Kentucky.While meeting in a conference with this group, he contracted disseminated histoplasmosis, which nearly took his life and confined him to bed for the next year.