As I sit here to write my last blog, I must admit to you that I have been putting it off. Subconsciously I feel that when I write this, my time spent in Nigeria is officially over. The truth is, my time spent physically in Nigeria is over and there is no changing that; however, the things that I have learned will never be over because they have morphed my life and my heart into something that I hope is more beautiful and pleasing to God.
The last week in Nigeria was a good time for reflection, preparation, fun, and fellowship. I spent the first two days in bed recovering from being ill. Let me give you a brief update on my health. That Sunday, the 10th of August, because I was feeling worse instead of better after a week of being ill I was put on anti-malarial medication and within 24 hours I was feeling better. Dr. Truxton, the OB-GYN missionary doctor who has been working at Evangel for the last 30 years or so said she thought it was malaria and gave me the medicine. She said that so many times the tests show negative even though you actually might have malaria and she felt it was best to treat it as malaria and if I recovered quickly on the medication then we would know. I praise the Lord for modern medicine and bodies that were made to heal! God is good and kept me in bed for 10 days to teach me a few things and then allowed me to begin the healing process. I am now fully recovered and getting my energy and stamina back day by day and I’m almost to 100 percent!! I realize that having malaria may keep me from donating blood and I have to watch for any reoccurring fevers, but I praise God that I didn’t get a severe case! Thank you all so much for your prayers, I am truly blessed to be surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses and so many who lift me up in prayer during my times of weakness.
Wednesday I went in to the hospital with Allison to the maternity ward. We walked around with the nurses and the doctors on ward rounds and checked on patients in labor. It being my first day really up and about in 10 days I had to sit every once in a while and rest. It made my slightly frustrated, but I was just happy to be out of bed and able to do something. Allison had an exciting opportunity when she was asked by a lady that she had helped in a difficult delivery the day before to name her son. After some thought and deliberation, the name Samuel was chosen because it means “Heard by God” and meaning is important in the Nigerian culture. We also got to assist a woman who gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and I thought it was interesting to see the interactions between the patients and the nurses. Most of the nurses who work in maternity are also mid-wives and do almost all of the un-complicated deliveries on their own. But when it is a dangerous or complicated delivery then the doctors will do the delivery. The nurses are very harsh in the way they treat the laboring mothers and it’s almost as if it is the culture that says “Women are made to have babies. You should know how to birth, I did it, why are you having trouble?” There is no teaching prior to labor and while writhing in pain the nurse will ask, “Do you know how to push?” No is the answer in most cases and at least in most of the first time mothers. I cannot imagine giving birth to my first child with having no teaching, no coaching, no encouragement and worst of all no pain medication. There is some local anesthetic given but other than that the women simply cringe and bear the pain. They are so strong. It was a very good experience to be in the delivery room in Jos having had some experience here in America during my training at school and comparing differences of techniques and culture.
Wednesday was actually our last day working in the hospital. I felt sad as I walked away from the hospital because I realized that it meant the beginning of the end. So many things we learned and saw and did at the hospital I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life. I know how to pray for the nurses and the doctors and for the work they are doing and for the work the Lord is doing at Evangel and my heart will always ache for the patients.
Thursday was a really fun day because we got to hang out with our dear friends Nanfe, and Nimchit who are sisters who live on the Evangel compound and also Lyop who was one of the Aunties out at the ECYA camp. These three amazing Nigerian women are all about our age, Nimchit is 19, Nanfe is 21 and Lyop is 22. They are so fun to be with and so loving and became our best friends. We had all decided that we wanted to cook a Nigerian meal together so that Allison and I could learn how to cook something traditional, so we planned to all go to the market together and buy the groceries we needed for cooking Jolof rice on Thursday afternoon. We went to the market together and Allison and I got to go back into the heart of the market with them and into the meat market and it was so fun to walk around with them and gather all that we needed and listen to them barter and laugh about silly things and dodge puddles and pretend to yell at cars that would splash us and walk arm in arm down the road. We finally got everything and made it back to our apartment and started cooking and we learned how to make Jolof rice, a traditional Nigerian rice dish that has peas, carrots, green beans, beef, tomatoes, onions and all sorts of yummy spices in it. We also had tradition Nigerian salad (which is just like coleslaw) and chips (fried potatoes) and squares of deep fried beef. MMMMMMMM!!! It was so fun to learn how to cook everything and it was GREAT to eat it all after being so hungry! We all had so much fun together and danced and sang to Celine Dion songs (that was music of ours that they knew) all along the way.
The next day was just as much fun!! We got our hair braided by Nanfe and Lyop and Allison and I are now officially Nigerian! =) It took about 4 ½ hours and there were definitely some eating and resting breaks in there, but it was so worth every minute of the time because the four of us had time together that we will remember for our entire lives. These girls are crazy fun and have big personalities! They love to laugh and smile and tease and do silly things. They have so much joy in their lives despite things that are hard and maintain a happiness and presences about them that is so contagious! Their commitment to the Lord and to living the way the Lord desires is so obvious in every part of their lives, and they have the love of Christ pouring out of their hearts so abundantly and spilling onto all those they come in contact with. I know that I have only known these girls for a few short weeks, but I feel as if I have known these sisters in Christ for years and years and I am so grateful that I get to spend eternity praising God with them. We shared our last meal together on Sunday just before we got picked up to go to the airport and Nanfe said, “This is the last meal we will share together for a while...” in a somber voice. That struck a chord in my heart and tears began to swim down my face as we all sat silently poking at our food. I looked up and saw across the table the faces of my two dear friends stained with tears and their eyes cast low to their untouched plates. It was a sad moment as we all sat understanding that we would not get to share laughs and joys together for some while. But I said “It’s ok, the Lord has brought us together and surely we are united with His love forever. I am going to miss you guys so much, but we may be back! And if not in this life, we have all of eternity!” They smiled and agreed and we all began to eat again. We were leaving Gemma, our good friend from Northern Ireland also and I was so sad to leave her as well. She had become such a dear friend and sister in such a short time and her heart is so amazing. We had already said good bye to Dan and Tim who left Saturday, but it wasn’t quite as sad because it was more of a “see you later” since they are taking a holiday right now all over the world and will be coming to LA and we are all going to have dinner together in a few weeks!
It broke my heart to drive away. To leave people you love, to leave a piece of your heart in a place you know not when you will return, if ever, to leave your home that you have made and to leave a community that has learned to love you, it is a difficult task. And yet we were never called to an easy life but to a life full of obedience. I know that I was called to Nigeria for 6 weeks and out of obedience I trusted the Lord’s leading and followed His calling there. And now I must be obedient and be back in the United States because this is now where He has brought me and where He wants me to be. Yes I am sad, I miss all my friends and the work that I was doing there, but I am also excited. I am excited to be back because I know that I can be used for the glory of God no matter where I am on this earth if I am just willing to be obedient to the Lord’s call. My life has been changed. My perspective has been altered. I am no longer the same Alisha Gilbert that I was 7 weeks ago before I flew to Nigeria, and I am so thankful that the Lord has chosen me to be one of His children, one that he chooses to teach, admonish, reveal himself to in so many ways and best of all love. I know that the Lord has a huge heart and loves every single person on this earth, and my desire is to grow closer and closer to His heart every day, no matter what country I am in, so that I might reflect His love and glory more piercingly in this dark and dying world that is so desperate for love manifested.
Thank you all, my dear supporters and friends, who have supported me by reading my blog, by praying for me, by supporting me financially, by thinking of me and by praising the Lord with me for the things He has done!! I truly would not have been able to have such an experience without you all! I pray that the Lord would continue to work in each one of your lives, constantly revealing Himself and His heart to you, and that you would never be stagnant in your walk of faith but that you would always be stepping out in faith asking God, what can I do next? How can I be used today? Who do you want me to love right now? Our God deserves so much praise and honor and we can only bring Him a small part of what He deserves by surrendering our entire life to Him. May you be surrendered today and for the rest of the days of your life, remembering that life can only be lived in the present, death was conquered in the past by the grace that Christ extended to us on the cross and the return of our King is in the future.
I pray for each on of you, that you are blessed 10 fold for the way you have blessed me.
Grace and Peace to you,
Alisha
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Week 5:A week of hard lessons
In all my previous blogs, I have been able to come to you with stories of amazing things that the Lord has been doing here in Nigeria and tell of ways in which the Lord has shown me more of Himself and His heart through activities that I have been involved in. But today, I cannot write such a blog. I say this not because God has in some way ceased to do such things or work in such amazing ways, but because I have had a very different lesson to learn this week in a very different way than before.
As I mentioned before, Allison and I went out to the ECYA camp to be the camp nurses on Saturday morning and our week started out fun! It was great to see the staff that we had grown close to over the staff training days last week and it made us really excited for the camp. We had our own table at the registration and we were to ask the kids if they had any medical problems we needed to know about or concerns we should be aware of as they came through the line of registration. It was fun to get to see all of the about-60 kids file past us and greet them and ask them questions and write down their names and see the faces of those we were to love and care for the needs of the rest of the week. That night and Sunday morning was full of taking care of peoples headaches, coughs, and other little things as well as joining in with the amazing singing, meetings, prayer times and our duties of inspecting each “hut” (cement buildings) in the morning and then teaching piano lessons (on the one keyboard we were provided with) for the activity we were asked to teach that they titled “Learn ‘D piano”. It was challenging but so much fun.
I had been feeling tired all day Sunday and felt that I was getting a headache, which was actually the first headache I have had since arriving on the African continent (Praise the Lord!). So at rest hour I lay down to take a nap and realized that my headache was rapidly turning into a migraine. “Oh no” I said to Allison, “I am an idiot. I think I pushed myself too much and it’s at migraine status...” I mumbled as I buried my head in my jacket to block out all noise and light. For the next 24 hours I was pretty much just that: buried away from the world. I had no idea what was going on except that Allison would come and gently wake me up and tell me that she was coming or going but that I should just sleep. I heard her but I couldn’t ever quite understand what was going on except I knew that my head was still hurting really bad and I felt exhausted. Monday afternoon I finally woke up a little. I felt so guilty that I had been sleeping so long and was so “weak” as to be in bed from a migraine for 24 hours that I forced myself to dress and insisted that I go up to the afternoon activities. For about 4 hours I was up and helped around with as much as I could here and there and sitting most of the time. But by the time dinner was served I was exhausted and could barely stand. I sat on the floor and Allison insisted on taking my temperature—low grade fever. Allison held me up as we shuffled through the darkness of the Nigerian night back to the staff house and I heard the kids begin singing back in the main hall. I started to cry. “What’s so fair about me being sick and not even being able to stand up and walk on my own right now God?” I thought to myself. But it was back to bed for me again. That night and the rest of Tuesday I was in bed, sleeping mostly, with no energy to do anything else. Renee came in Tuesday afternoon and sat down on the bed next to me and said “Ok here’s the deal cutie. There has been an executive decision made that you need to come back to town with us tonight when I take the STAMP team” (a team from Moody Bible Institute) .. “I know you don’t want to and wouldn’t if we didn’t make you, so we are going to make you. We think you need to be tested for malaria.” WHAT! I DON’T HAVE MALARIA AND I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME! YOU CANT SEND ME HOME! I AM SUPPOSED TO BE THE NURSE! I CANT BE SICK! Everything inside me was screaming... but logically I knew they were right in their decision to at least get me tested, rule it out and send me home to rest. “You’re right I wouldn’t go if you didn’t make me, but I understand why you are making me, so I will go.” I said yieldingly, peering out at her from my cave of darkness I had made myself to shield my eyes from the light that caused so much pain and discomfort. “Good, we will come and get you tonight..” She said with a smile, knowing how hard it was for me to give in and feeling for me but wanting the best for my health at the same time. A growing feeling of frustration and anger closed even stronger over me, toward God and mostly toward myself.
The rest of the afternoon and evening I was sleeping and in the evening I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired that I slowly and carefully shuffled out of my “dungeon” and ventured into the living room area of the staff house. Although it was a little bright for my eyes, I was able to journal a little and process a few things through writing. I have to admit with you that I have an idea of what God is trying to teach me by allowing an illness during my time in Nigeria, but for some reason, every time I experience pain I feel the same anger and I ask the same questions. I hear the same answers and I respond the same way. Why so stubborn Alisha? Hahaha... good question. If you will, let me share with you a deep part of my heart. This is very difficult for me, to be vulnerable, to be broken, to show you my innermost thoughts, to show you a melancholy and heavy side of my heart, but I have been asked by God this week to trust Him more and more and so here is just another baby step of faith...
...perhaps you can relate to some of these thoughts...
...“I don’t think it’s malaria because I think I would have a much higher fever, but I do admit that my other symptoms are scarily similar. But the biggest one is the fever, and it would be higher, so I don’t know what’s going on. I hate this. I hate feeling bad. I hate being a wimp. I hate not knowing what’s wrong but feeling awful. I hate that people have to wait on me instead of my getting to wait on others. I don’t know what God is trying to teach me, but I hate the lesson. I know I am being stubborn and I’m probably not listening, but seriously, haven’t we been through this a million times? I feel like I’ve said ‘ok, I surrender, the pain is too much for me to handle God!’ thousands of times, is it that I just need to say it one more time? I hate being mad at God and it seems like I am when I need Him the most. So am I just mad till the point of breaking? ...to the point of using God like a lucky charm?... like a genii that’s going to fix my problems as soon as I call upon Him? NO!!! That’s not the way it works, and yet there seems to be some cycle. Some cycle I can’t break free of because every time I cringe with pain I become more stubborn, then I let go, then I’m fine again, then I’m in pain, I become stubborn, I let go then I’m fine again. WHY? Why can’t I just learn to let go the FIRST time? I’m so tired of being stubborn that now I’m too tired to let go...”
I realize that because journaling is more free writing, some of the thoughts do not make as much sense as perhaps if I would explain in eloquent language all my phrases of feelings and emotions that I have merely jotted roughly down on the pages of my journal, but I think it gives you a very clear idea of where my heart is, was, has been, (I’m not sure what tense to use). But before I continue to talk about the lessons God has been teaching me, first let me tell you about the rest of my week.
Tuesday night after I journaled and struggled through my thoughts, I was fed by and fellowshipped with a family from New Zealand, the Gills, who are helping with the ECYA camp this summer. I found their company very amusing (three kids ages 12,10 and 9) and encouraging. I was taken back to Evangel and made it in bed that night.
The next day it was planned for me to meet Dr. Sampson at the pediatric ward to get tested for Malaria. SO I woke up feeling slightly stronger and a little less headachy but with more nausea and dizziness. I made the slow trek down to the hospital and it took me about three times as long because I was walking so slowly, but I finally made it. The test was NEGATIVE!! =) So no malaria for me. Dr. Sampson said that it was probably just a nasty virus that mimics malaria and that will run its course and hopefully will be gone in a weeks time or so with rest. As I wrote to one friend... “So the good news is I don’t have little parasites running around blowing up my red blood cells.. and the bad news is there are no drugs for me to take to feel better so I have to just rest. REST? BORING. God would.” =)
But I’m stubborn still and think I am strong and did not want to be alone on my BIRTHDAY, (yes it was my 20th birthday...) and so I decided to go back to camp Wednesday afternoon and come back to Evangel to sleep again with the team in the evening. (*QUICK FUNNY* The real (wink wink) reason I wanted to go out to go back out to camp was that Allison had brought from the USA some peanut M&Ms for my birthday that we have been diligently saving for the last 5 weeks and practicing some REAL self control not eating the whole time.. and I couldn’t eat them by myself, and I couldn’t NOT eat them after all we had suffered in our waiting.. So I just had to go out and be with her so we could eat them together. =) ... and let me tell you, it was a glorious moment eating them together on my birthday!!!) I’m really glad I went back out because it was fun. It was good to see the staff and they were all really happy to see me and find out how I was feeling. They were really sweet and the whole camp sang happy birthday to me! I also got to sit in on the end-of-camp camp-fire where all the testimonies about the week are shared and it was a really sweet time of hearing how the Lord had been working in the kids lives that week. And then I got to say a final goodbye to all the staff. My heart was really sad when I had to say goodbye to these brothers and sister and felt that I had known them all for years. It struck me that I may not see these brothers and sisters again until we meet again in heaven.
Thursday and Friday were full of resting again. Naps, sitting around, writing, thinking, eating when I could and trying to drink lots of fluids (for you mom) =) The guys made dinner for us Thursday night and made a really yummy and cute birthday cake for me which was so fun! I was only bad once on Friday and convinced Allison I was strong enough to taxi with her to SIM headquarters to get money out of our accounts for our last week. I barely made it back, but it ended up good and I just rested the whole rest of the day. Saturday was fun too! A girl from N. Ireland arrived to stay with us for our last week because she is going to be living in this apartment for the next six weeks. Her name is Gemma and she is a doll! Allison and I love her already, she is so sweet! We also had Bobby and Joseph over for dinner so the 7 of us (including Tim and Dan) had a birthday dinner for me and ANOTHER birthday cake that Allison made! It was REALLY cute too! I guess when you turn 20 you get 2 birthday cakes, one for each decade you have successfully completed?? Well I don’t know about the successfully...=) but it was good cake and good fellowship with all so we had a good time. I was feeling a little stronger that morning but by dinner only had enough strength to help cook sitting down and eventually was kicked out of the kitchen. KAI! (a Nigerian phrase like “wow” or “geez”).. It’s tough sitting around while other people are working...
So back to talking about the lessons God is teaching me...
Weakness: it is one of the most frustrating things to me. When I cannot even walk 100 feet without feeling dizzy and getting tired or stand long enough to cook dinner I am so angry at myself. WHY? YOU ARE SICK SILLY ...you might be thinking. I know. But I don’t think this way. You see, I love having strength and need strength because I love to be doing things, doing things for people, doing things to keep myself busy, doing things for the Lord to bring him glory. I am a doer. I LOVE to be doing. I find that I can serve God when I am doing things, and in a sense I feel that I am more deserving of the love of God when I am ‘doing’ and serving Him. And here, my dear supporters, friends, I am utterly mistaken. There is NOTHING, wait.. let me say that again.. NOTHING, I can do that will make God love me more, nor is there anything I can do to make God love me less. Here is the lesson I have been learning this week... really I can summarize it much better in a poem I wrote this week...
Who is strong and what is strength?
Is it you oh man?
You who build towers so tall and
Command the strength of a beast.
You who sail the many seas in your strong vessels
You who conquer foreign lands to prove your power and strength
You who study your world to gain understanding
So that you might wield your strength over it.
But tell me, Oh man, where is your strength, then in
You whose towers topple and
Work of a hundred years is destroyed in seconds
And tell me of strength in
You who are overpowered, outwitted, out-sensed by the beasts you long to tame.
You who command a vessel of the sea but remain victims and captives to it’s whims.
You who destroy your own kind for pleasure and revel in the never ending blood bath.
You who have studied for thousands of years
But are still perplexed with the simplest of questions.
But listen to me, Oh man, Oh mortal, and I shall tell you of strength, for it was
I who built the heavens and the earth and
I who have the strength to maintain or destroy it.
It is I who created all beasts both great and small
And they bow at the sound of My voice.
I who, with one word, can calm the seas or enrage the heavens.
I who never act unjustly in my anger but carry out judgment with perfect severity.
I who created all things so intricate and so beautiful
Simply because it pleases Me and I find it good.
You are not strong, Man
But I do not love you for your strength.
I love you because I made you
And out of all the complexity, power, beauty and strength
I made your heart and soul to be free
To think and love and feel
Just like me.
This is why, Oh man, I love you.
Not for you strength, you see?
I am still working through my frustrations of pain and weakness, but I think it is exactly the lesson God wants me to keep learning, “Be still, and know that I AM GOD”. He does not want our strength or our actions, He wants our hearts, surrendered and soft to whatever He has each day of our lives. I want so much to give up my stubbornness and allow God to be the first one I run to as soon as pain or unexpected circumstances arise and not my pride or my own strength to be what keeps me going.
I realize that this may not be the blog that some of you may have been hoping for or expecting, and yet I had such a clear conviction that I needed to share with you my heart and my struggles. I do not know why the Lord put it so heavily on my heart to write this all to you: perhaps it is so that you might be able to pray for me more specifically or perhaps that the Holy Spirit might speak through something I have said that speaks to something in your life, maybe a struggle we share.
Whatever it may be that the Lord is doing in your life, know that He wants your heart first and not your actions. Know that He is a God that will not love you more or less for what you DO, but loves you fervently because you are YOU and He created you. Know that He is patient through our stubbornness and is always waiting for us to come back to say for the thousandth time “ok Lord, I know. I need you. I can’t do this on my own...I get it”
Don’t be stubborn. He might allow you to get a nasty virus to lay you flat, slow you down and teach you a few things... =)
Maranatha!!!!
Alisha
“In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps” Proverbs 16:9
ps. Quick update: I wrote my blog Saturday night and it is now Sunday night when I am posting my blog (due to internet connection) and I just wanted to ask you all to please PRAY for me, I am again feeling worse, fever again and they have put my on anti-malarials. Dr. Truxton had us all over for lunch and when she heard about my week and saw me she said she thought it was malaria because I wasn’t getting better and if it were a virus I would be getting better by now instead of worse again. She said many times the tests may not turn up positive but it may still be malaria. Thanks for your continued prayers, we will see of these medicines work!
PRAISES
-We checked in on Blessing and she is OFF oxygen and IV therapy and is looking healthy and is doing really well!!! Praise the Lord!!!
-Camp went really well and there were no serious injuries or illnesses and the Lord worked in the lives of many!
PRAYER
-Pray that I would begin regaining some strength and that I would get out of pain with my headaches and body aches.
-Pray for our last week here in Nigeria! Pray that we would have sweet fellowship saying goodbye to all our dear friends and really have a good last week.
As I mentioned before, Allison and I went out to the ECYA camp to be the camp nurses on Saturday morning and our week started out fun! It was great to see the staff that we had grown close to over the staff training days last week and it made us really excited for the camp. We had our own table at the registration and we were to ask the kids if they had any medical problems we needed to know about or concerns we should be aware of as they came through the line of registration. It was fun to get to see all of the about-60 kids file past us and greet them and ask them questions and write down their names and see the faces of those we were to love and care for the needs of the rest of the week. That night and Sunday morning was full of taking care of peoples headaches, coughs, and other little things as well as joining in with the amazing singing, meetings, prayer times and our duties of inspecting each “hut” (cement buildings) in the morning and then teaching piano lessons (on the one keyboard we were provided with) for the activity we were asked to teach that they titled “Learn ‘D piano”. It was challenging but so much fun.
I had been feeling tired all day Sunday and felt that I was getting a headache, which was actually the first headache I have had since arriving on the African continent (Praise the Lord!). So at rest hour I lay down to take a nap and realized that my headache was rapidly turning into a migraine. “Oh no” I said to Allison, “I am an idiot. I think I pushed myself too much and it’s at migraine status...” I mumbled as I buried my head in my jacket to block out all noise and light. For the next 24 hours I was pretty much just that: buried away from the world. I had no idea what was going on except that Allison would come and gently wake me up and tell me that she was coming or going but that I should just sleep. I heard her but I couldn’t ever quite understand what was going on except I knew that my head was still hurting really bad and I felt exhausted. Monday afternoon I finally woke up a little. I felt so guilty that I had been sleeping so long and was so “weak” as to be in bed from a migraine for 24 hours that I forced myself to dress and insisted that I go up to the afternoon activities. For about 4 hours I was up and helped around with as much as I could here and there and sitting most of the time. But by the time dinner was served I was exhausted and could barely stand. I sat on the floor and Allison insisted on taking my temperature—low grade fever. Allison held me up as we shuffled through the darkness of the Nigerian night back to the staff house and I heard the kids begin singing back in the main hall. I started to cry. “What’s so fair about me being sick and not even being able to stand up and walk on my own right now God?” I thought to myself. But it was back to bed for me again. That night and the rest of Tuesday I was in bed, sleeping mostly, with no energy to do anything else. Renee came in Tuesday afternoon and sat down on the bed next to me and said “Ok here’s the deal cutie. There has been an executive decision made that you need to come back to town with us tonight when I take the STAMP team” (a team from Moody Bible Institute) .. “I know you don’t want to and wouldn’t if we didn’t make you, so we are going to make you. We think you need to be tested for malaria.” WHAT! I DON’T HAVE MALARIA AND I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME! YOU CANT SEND ME HOME! I AM SUPPOSED TO BE THE NURSE! I CANT BE SICK! Everything inside me was screaming... but logically I knew they were right in their decision to at least get me tested, rule it out and send me home to rest. “You’re right I wouldn’t go if you didn’t make me, but I understand why you are making me, so I will go.” I said yieldingly, peering out at her from my cave of darkness I had made myself to shield my eyes from the light that caused so much pain and discomfort. “Good, we will come and get you tonight..” She said with a smile, knowing how hard it was for me to give in and feeling for me but wanting the best for my health at the same time. A growing feeling of frustration and anger closed even stronger over me, toward God and mostly toward myself.
The rest of the afternoon and evening I was sleeping and in the evening I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired that I slowly and carefully shuffled out of my “dungeon” and ventured into the living room area of the staff house. Although it was a little bright for my eyes, I was able to journal a little and process a few things through writing. I have to admit with you that I have an idea of what God is trying to teach me by allowing an illness during my time in Nigeria, but for some reason, every time I experience pain I feel the same anger and I ask the same questions. I hear the same answers and I respond the same way. Why so stubborn Alisha? Hahaha... good question. If you will, let me share with you a deep part of my heart. This is very difficult for me, to be vulnerable, to be broken, to show you my innermost thoughts, to show you a melancholy and heavy side of my heart, but I have been asked by God this week to trust Him more and more and so here is just another baby step of faith...
...perhaps you can relate to some of these thoughts...
...“I don’t think it’s malaria because I think I would have a much higher fever, but I do admit that my other symptoms are scarily similar. But the biggest one is the fever, and it would be higher, so I don’t know what’s going on. I hate this. I hate feeling bad. I hate being a wimp. I hate not knowing what’s wrong but feeling awful. I hate that people have to wait on me instead of my getting to wait on others. I don’t know what God is trying to teach me, but I hate the lesson. I know I am being stubborn and I’m probably not listening, but seriously, haven’t we been through this a million times? I feel like I’ve said ‘ok, I surrender, the pain is too much for me to handle God!’ thousands of times, is it that I just need to say it one more time? I hate being mad at God and it seems like I am when I need Him the most. So am I just mad till the point of breaking? ...to the point of using God like a lucky charm?... like a genii that’s going to fix my problems as soon as I call upon Him? NO!!! That’s not the way it works, and yet there seems to be some cycle. Some cycle I can’t break free of because every time I cringe with pain I become more stubborn, then I let go, then I’m fine again, then I’m in pain, I become stubborn, I let go then I’m fine again. WHY? Why can’t I just learn to let go the FIRST time? I’m so tired of being stubborn that now I’m too tired to let go...”
I realize that because journaling is more free writing, some of the thoughts do not make as much sense as perhaps if I would explain in eloquent language all my phrases of feelings and emotions that I have merely jotted roughly down on the pages of my journal, but I think it gives you a very clear idea of where my heart is, was, has been, (I’m not sure what tense to use). But before I continue to talk about the lessons God has been teaching me, first let me tell you about the rest of my week.
Tuesday night after I journaled and struggled through my thoughts, I was fed by and fellowshipped with a family from New Zealand, the Gills, who are helping with the ECYA camp this summer. I found their company very amusing (three kids ages 12,10 and 9) and encouraging. I was taken back to Evangel and made it in bed that night.
The next day it was planned for me to meet Dr. Sampson at the pediatric ward to get tested for Malaria. SO I woke up feeling slightly stronger and a little less headachy but with more nausea and dizziness. I made the slow trek down to the hospital and it took me about three times as long because I was walking so slowly, but I finally made it. The test was NEGATIVE!! =) So no malaria for me. Dr. Sampson said that it was probably just a nasty virus that mimics malaria and that will run its course and hopefully will be gone in a weeks time or so with rest. As I wrote to one friend... “So the good news is I don’t have little parasites running around blowing up my red blood cells.. and the bad news is there are no drugs for me to take to feel better so I have to just rest. REST? BORING. God would.” =)
But I’m stubborn still and think I am strong and did not want to be alone on my BIRTHDAY, (yes it was my 20th birthday...) and so I decided to go back to camp Wednesday afternoon and come back to Evangel to sleep again with the team in the evening. (*QUICK FUNNY* The real (wink wink) reason I wanted to go out to go back out to camp was that Allison had brought from the USA some peanut M&Ms for my birthday that we have been diligently saving for the last 5 weeks and practicing some REAL self control not eating the whole time.. and I couldn’t eat them by myself, and I couldn’t NOT eat them after all we had suffered in our waiting.. So I just had to go out and be with her so we could eat them together. =) ... and let me tell you, it was a glorious moment eating them together on my birthday!!!) I’m really glad I went back out because it was fun. It was good to see the staff and they were all really happy to see me and find out how I was feeling. They were really sweet and the whole camp sang happy birthday to me! I also got to sit in on the end-of-camp camp-fire where all the testimonies about the week are shared and it was a really sweet time of hearing how the Lord had been working in the kids lives that week. And then I got to say a final goodbye to all the staff. My heart was really sad when I had to say goodbye to these brothers and sister and felt that I had known them all for years. It struck me that I may not see these brothers and sisters again until we meet again in heaven.
Thursday and Friday were full of resting again. Naps, sitting around, writing, thinking, eating when I could and trying to drink lots of fluids (for you mom) =) The guys made dinner for us Thursday night and made a really yummy and cute birthday cake for me which was so fun! I was only bad once on Friday and convinced Allison I was strong enough to taxi with her to SIM headquarters to get money out of our accounts for our last week. I barely made it back, but it ended up good and I just rested the whole rest of the day. Saturday was fun too! A girl from N. Ireland arrived to stay with us for our last week because she is going to be living in this apartment for the next six weeks. Her name is Gemma and she is a doll! Allison and I love her already, she is so sweet! We also had Bobby and Joseph over for dinner so the 7 of us (including Tim and Dan) had a birthday dinner for me and ANOTHER birthday cake that Allison made! It was REALLY cute too! I guess when you turn 20 you get 2 birthday cakes, one for each decade you have successfully completed?? Well I don’t know about the successfully...=) but it was good cake and good fellowship with all so we had a good time. I was feeling a little stronger that morning but by dinner only had enough strength to help cook sitting down and eventually was kicked out of the kitchen. KAI! (a Nigerian phrase like “wow” or “geez”).. It’s tough sitting around while other people are working...
So back to talking about the lessons God is teaching me...
Weakness: it is one of the most frustrating things to me. When I cannot even walk 100 feet without feeling dizzy and getting tired or stand long enough to cook dinner I am so angry at myself. WHY? YOU ARE SICK SILLY ...you might be thinking. I know. But I don’t think this way. You see, I love having strength and need strength because I love to be doing things, doing things for people, doing things to keep myself busy, doing things for the Lord to bring him glory. I am a doer. I LOVE to be doing. I find that I can serve God when I am doing things, and in a sense I feel that I am more deserving of the love of God when I am ‘doing’ and serving Him. And here, my dear supporters, friends, I am utterly mistaken. There is NOTHING, wait.. let me say that again.. NOTHING, I can do that will make God love me more, nor is there anything I can do to make God love me less. Here is the lesson I have been learning this week... really I can summarize it much better in a poem I wrote this week...
Who is strong and what is strength?
Is it you oh man?
You who build towers so tall and
Command the strength of a beast.
You who sail the many seas in your strong vessels
You who conquer foreign lands to prove your power and strength
You who study your world to gain understanding
So that you might wield your strength over it.
But tell me, Oh man, where is your strength, then in
You whose towers topple and
Work of a hundred years is destroyed in seconds
And tell me of strength in
You who are overpowered, outwitted, out-sensed by the beasts you long to tame.
You who command a vessel of the sea but remain victims and captives to it’s whims.
You who destroy your own kind for pleasure and revel in the never ending blood bath.
You who have studied for thousands of years
But are still perplexed with the simplest of questions.
But listen to me, Oh man, Oh mortal, and I shall tell you of strength, for it was
I who built the heavens and the earth and
I who have the strength to maintain or destroy it.
It is I who created all beasts both great and small
And they bow at the sound of My voice.
I who, with one word, can calm the seas or enrage the heavens.
I who never act unjustly in my anger but carry out judgment with perfect severity.
I who created all things so intricate and so beautiful
Simply because it pleases Me and I find it good.
You are not strong, Man
But I do not love you for your strength.
I love you because I made you
And out of all the complexity, power, beauty and strength
I made your heart and soul to be free
To think and love and feel
Just like me.
This is why, Oh man, I love you.
Not for you strength, you see?
I am still working through my frustrations of pain and weakness, but I think it is exactly the lesson God wants me to keep learning, “Be still, and know that I AM GOD”. He does not want our strength or our actions, He wants our hearts, surrendered and soft to whatever He has each day of our lives. I want so much to give up my stubbornness and allow God to be the first one I run to as soon as pain or unexpected circumstances arise and not my pride or my own strength to be what keeps me going.
I realize that this may not be the blog that some of you may have been hoping for or expecting, and yet I had such a clear conviction that I needed to share with you my heart and my struggles. I do not know why the Lord put it so heavily on my heart to write this all to you: perhaps it is so that you might be able to pray for me more specifically or perhaps that the Holy Spirit might speak through something I have said that speaks to something in your life, maybe a struggle we share.
Whatever it may be that the Lord is doing in your life, know that He wants your heart first and not your actions. Know that He is a God that will not love you more or less for what you DO, but loves you fervently because you are YOU and He created you. Know that He is patient through our stubbornness and is always waiting for us to come back to say for the thousandth time “ok Lord, I know. I need you. I can’t do this on my own...I get it”
Don’t be stubborn. He might allow you to get a nasty virus to lay you flat, slow you down and teach you a few things... =)
Maranatha!!!!
Alisha
“In his heart a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps” Proverbs 16:9
ps. Quick update: I wrote my blog Saturday night and it is now Sunday night when I am posting my blog (due to internet connection) and I just wanted to ask you all to please PRAY for me, I am again feeling worse, fever again and they have put my on anti-malarials. Dr. Truxton had us all over for lunch and when she heard about my week and saw me she said she thought it was malaria because I wasn’t getting better and if it were a virus I would be getting better by now instead of worse again. She said many times the tests may not turn up positive but it may still be malaria. Thanks for your continued prayers, we will see of these medicines work!
PRAISES
-We checked in on Blessing and she is OFF oxygen and IV therapy and is looking healthy and is doing really well!!! Praise the Lord!!!
-Camp went really well and there were no serious injuries or illnesses and the Lord worked in the lives of many!
PRAYER
-Pray that I would begin regaining some strength and that I would get out of pain with my headaches and body aches.
-Pray for our last week here in Nigeria! Pray that we would have sweet fellowship saying goodbye to all our dear friends and really have a good last week.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Week 4: A tender-hearted God
This week was a week that is hard to summarize because it was packed with many different challenges, ministries, blessings, fears, hardships and lessons. “How can 5 days be that hard to summarize?” you might ask... Well the truth is, this week was hard. I get to the end of this week and I admit, I am really tired.
I wanted to update my blog today because this morning Allison and I will be going to the ECWA Camp Youth Alive to be the camp nurses for about sixty 12-15 years olds. We will be gone until Thursday evening. Please pray with us as we go on this adventure! I know the Lord has a lot of things he wants to teach us this week and we are looking forward to growing!
This week started out with Allison feeling a little under the weather and me starting the week of by myself in pediatrics. It was really neat to get to be in Peds this week. The pediatric ward is composed of a few different rooms: the new born ICU, the ICU, the general ward and then a few private rooms. I was introduced to the nurses and the head nurse of the Peds floor who then introduced me to the doctors who were just about to start making their rounds. There are two Nigerian doctors and then a missionary doctor and they are all so kind and compassionate. We started in the new born ICU where the tiny babies stay under incubators. There were three babies in the room and two were premature babies. One of the babies had just been born the day before and was weighing 800 grams!!! That is only 1.76 pounds!! This little baby had feet the size of half my little pinky finger! It was so tiny and I was in awe that the child was still breathing and its heart was still thumping and it was surviving on the cruel earth for a little while.
We continued with rounds and saw each child and talked with the mothers and discussed the drug regiments and the progress and any new findings. It was very interesting and I really find it fascinating how much time the doctors spend really pouring over their patients each day. After rounds one of the doctors took me up to the PEPFAR clinic, a clinic that is funded by President Bush that provides medicine and clinical care for children with HIV. I sat and watched mother and child after mother and child walk in and out of the clinic room door and listened to each story and my heart began to wonder. How did each of these mothers get HIV? Was by a careless mistake or was it by a choice not of their own? And why in the world would God allow innocent little children to be harmed by this deadly virus? My heart began to wonder, and yet I could find no answers as I searched their faces.
My day ended at the hospital and I returned to find Allison looking and feeling better. Later in the afternoon we had our first real Nigerian visit! The culture here is that when a friend is in the area they call on you, and one of the staff members for the camp this upcoming week that we had met at training came calling with two of her friends that live on the Evangel compound. It was really fun to have three Nigerian girls our age over and we served them food (you have to offer them snacks at least or else you are considered very very stingy). Just as they were about to leave we received a text message from our friend Joseph who is here working with City Ministries with SIM that said he was at Evangel because a guy who was with a team that had just arrived from Joseph’s home church had broken both of his legs. Tim, Dan, Allison and I got ourselves a bite of dinner and then hurried down to the “Injection Room” which is their ER. There on a stretcher we saw him: a boy of 15 years old with two fractures, we saw the x-rays later showing a compound fracture of the femur in his left leg and fracture of the right tibia. His sister was also on the team and they had a doctor on the team, so Joseph and the two of them were standing with him. They all looked worried, tired and unsure of what was to come. Although having bleeding legs and both broken in the middle of Africa may seem like a very terrible thing (and it is), God is good. God for-saw everything that was to take place that night and is to be glorified!! SO IT JUST SO HAPPENS (wink wink) that an Orthopedic Surgeon from the U.S.A is here this month!! WOW! So they called him up (he is living on the compound) and he came down and they were able to do the surgery. During the surgery Allison and I hosted Katie (the sister) Jospeh and the medical doctor from the team (Dr. Martin). It was really neat to get to all gather and debrief and pray together as the surgery took place. It was so obvious that the Lord had His hand throughout the entire night and the following few days. It ended up that Nathan (the boy) had to be evacuated (flown out of the country for further medical attention) because he would need furter surgery with tools that were unavailable here. However, the orthopedic surgeon here was able to do an excellent job and stabilized him without any complications. The entire community rallied around Nathan and he was a trooper. It was really neat to see how the body of believers is just like one big family: Nathan’s parents were not here with him, but he had people coming and providing care for him in the hospital from the organization and loving him as their own child.
*SIGH* and THAT was just Monday!!
Tuesday was the same with pediatrics and care and then helping take care of Nathan a bit. Wednesday felt like it was going to start out the same as Tuesday had, but it started out at the bedside of a very sick little girl. This four week old little girl had presented to the hospital with history of fever and severe abdominal distention. It seemed after examination and assessment that this child was in severe condition and if not treated soon with a surgical relief and cleansing of the abdomen, the respirations would get worse and the child would soon die. So they called in the surgeon and he agreed to do the surgery, but only under one condition: that the parents know the risk of the child dying on the table during surgery because of the small measure of health the little girl had left. The doctors began consulting the parents and the Uncle that was there about the surgery and the consequences of having the surgery and not having the surgery. The mother was crying and the family was allowed time to talk with each other. I was sure that when they came back in, because of the way the doctors presented the case, the family would chose to do the surgery. But when the came back in the Uncle said “We are not satisfied with the surgery” and they refused to have it done! As the words that seemed to dictate the life of this small and beautiful child rolled off of his lips, my heart felt like it had fallen out of my chest and broken into a million pieces onto the floor. I had to turn away from the family as a tear invaded my eye and I tried to fight the emotions that began to burn. I gazed at the precious face of the little one, struggling, gasping for breathe, for life, for a chance to become someone, to be loved on this earth. Allison and I were not able to stay around and watch how it ended but as we walked away to hitch a ride to Gidan Bege we heard the Doctors struggling to talk to the parents again about their decision. NO: you do not want to take your child back to the village, she will die before you reach the gate if she is not on oxygen. YES: we want to know things like why you gave your child a spicy concoction of chile pepper, when for a child of just a few weeks that is poison to the GI tract. As Allison and I walked in silence back to our apartment to change our clothes, tears finally began streaming down my face. “It’s just so unfair. I can understand adult death, but a child who does not chose her own life or death, WHY? Why would God allow such existence? He cannot take pleasure in such an existence? and How can the human soul be so twisted so as to in fact poison their own young?” These thoughts and so many others rushed through my head but none so clear as the one that I kept coming back to: “Be still, and know that I AM GOD” the Lord seemed to keep saying to me. We were headed off to Gidan Bege and I breathed a sigh of surrender and said allowed to Allison, “I have to giver her up”. What I meant by this statement was not that I had to leave hope that this child would live, but that I had to bring all my doubts and my questions and surrender them to the feet of Jesus and admit I cannot understand why things happen the way they do, but I am not God, and I do not see the way that the Lord is working in each person’s life for His glory. Allison reminded me that the Lord looks down on that little girl with far more love than we could ever have for her, and how much more does it pain Him to watch her suffer? So we tried to set the sadness aside so that we could continue on in our ministry to the widows at Gidan Bege and then the medical outreach at Blind Town, but we were both eager to find out what had happened. That evening a few minutes after we got home, our phone rang and it was the pediatrician from the United States. He said “Hi, I know you guys were concerned about the baby we were seeing today, I just wanted to let you know that the parents did end up consenting to the surgery and that they did not find anything definitive in the abdomen, but they found a lot of pus. So they cleaned out the abdomen and sewed her back up and she is doing pretty well. I just got to go down and pray over the baby and her mom with a few others, and I know you guys wanted to be praying as well. Some babies are just meant to make it through. Her name is Blessing...”
So with exceeding joy I thanked him for the update and told Allison the news. We were both so glad to hear that Blessing was stable and had gotten the surgery she needed! It was as if I almost heard God say to me “You see child, I love this little one as much as I love anyone, and I am listening to prayers, why don’t you trust me? Have I ever been unfaithful?” No. The answer is no, God has never been unfaithful. He may not answer our prayers the way we think they should be answered but that does not mean He does not answer them at all. He is a loving God, a merciful God, one that desires to give a weeping mother her child back from the graves edge, a God who has all healing power and is limited by nothing. Blessing is stable now and thanks to so many of your prayers is on the road to full recovery. We serve a BIG God, but He is also tender. He hears when His children weep, and He weeps with us. Let us never underestimate the tenderness of God’s heart and so shake our fist at him when we see pain in this world. How much more does pain and suffering of the little children make God cry? He must be so eager to restore the earth and in fact then make a new heaven and earth, where pain and suffering are no more. I learned about the tenderness of God’s heart this week.
The ministry of serving the widows in the clinic at Gidan Bege was really awesome! I wrote about it in my first blog, and it was similar to this week. Except this week there were not a lot of medial personnel, only Allison and I and then two other Nigerian Nurses who are trained in community health. It was really fun to be working in the clinic, to have the 41 women that we served walk through the door, for me to practice all my Hausa greetings, for Allison and I to take their blood pressure and then to discuss their problems that they complained of and give them medication. It was really neat to get to see face after face come through the door, knowing that they were there so that we could help them in the name of our Lord. What an honor it is to be the hands of Jesus! We then took the medical bags and Allison and I split up and one of us went with one of the Nurses and one with the other and there was a big team that split up and went with us also. I was really glad the Lord had allowed us to get a ride to Gidan Bege, because they were a little short staffed for Blind Town’s medical outreach since only one in the team was a doctor. I was able to go into the houses with Vicky, the nurse, and while she was talking with the people and translating I would take a few blood pressures and begin handing out medications. I learned how to say “once a day” or “twice a day” in Hausa and I even gave medication to the chief of blind town and told him “twice a day” by myself on the instruction of Vicky! Because the team was there with us, they attracted all the kids. There were so many children that gathered and it drew crowds of at least 40-50 kids. But when the houses are small and the alley ways even smaller, it made for a difficult time to even get around to the people we needed to see. It worked out well though because the team ended up staying in one place, playing with the kids and Vicky and I and only one or two of the other team members would actually go into the house, listen, assess, give the medication and then go to the next house. I was grateful for the team that they were so willing to jump right in and play with the kids, and I was in awe of how Vicky handled the chaos. The Lord is really doing a great work in Blind Town. So many want help and are open to healing. The Lord is using physical healing as a way of manifesting the kind of healing that only He can bring to a life of spiritual disease.
Thursday we went to Gyero which is a village about 10 miles outside of Jos that ECWA owns about 1/3rd of and runs an orphanage on the land. The orphanage is where boys from Gidan Bege who have been there for 6 months are transferred to and then the boys (and now they have about 12 girls) will live there for about 10 years, some more, many less, until they can go to school and learn a trade and be well set in their adulthood physically, emotionally and spiritually. The boys range in ages of 7 to 20 years old and the girls range in ages 6 to 16. It was really encouraging to get to see the ministry because I have heard so much about it with my friends Jaime and Joseph both working out at Gyero. I was really glad for the opportunity to go and play a little with the kids, sing songs with them and take a hike around the village. God is blessing that ministry and it is exciting to see how many lives they are impacting!
Yesterday was back in the Pediatric ward. There was a little baby of 6 weeks of age that we examined who was admitted with respiratory distress. This child is HIV exposed, meaning his mother has HIV but it cannot be confirmed or denied that the child is yet positive. Upon examination the child seemed to have Bronchial pneumonia and/or a condition that goes along with AIDS and the low CD4 count. Again, as I watched the child gasping for air, twitching because of hypoxia, vomiting into its oxygen facemask and receive an NG tube and a tiny catheter to monitor output, I could not help but wonder how it was right or fair that this child was suffering so much for a deadly disease that he did not chose to get or has the chance to fight. The doctors talked with the parents saying that the baby was in really bad condition and they should prepare themselves that he may go. The doctor gently reminded them that they would do anything they could to help the baby, but that the timing of the child’s life is in God’s hands and He is sovereign. These doctors see child after child die and it breaks their heart every time, but they must continue to do their work despite their pain because they save many more lives than they lose and they bring glory to God despite the circumstances. I pray that I never lose sight of the fact that every life is precious and that I continue to learn how to be tender-hearted because God is tender-hearted. But I also pray that I am able to have strength and understanding and a peace that passes all understanding because God is the giver and taker of life and only He knows the plans for each of our lives.
May you all continue to remember that life is precious and that God is tender-hearted. He weeps when you weep and longs to wrap you in his arms when you are hurting. Do not think we serve a cold-hearted God. He will be the first one standing at the gate of heaven to lovingly welcome the little baby into His arms and embrace Him in a place where there will be no more tears of sorrow or pain. Praise God, for He is worthy of all our admiration, adoration and reverence!
Maranatha!
Alisha
PRAISES
-Blessing is doing well and is stable!
-Nathan flew out and is in South Africa getting the second surgery on his legs and is doing well with no signs of infection or further complications
-Allison and I are staying healthy
PRAYER
-For camp this week, that the Lord would prepare the hearts of the campers to hear what He wants to teach them, for strength and health for all and especially wisdom and endurance for Allison and I
-For the little ones who are ill and dying and for the parents of all the little ones.
I wanted to update my blog today because this morning Allison and I will be going to the ECWA Camp Youth Alive to be the camp nurses for about sixty 12-15 years olds. We will be gone until Thursday evening. Please pray with us as we go on this adventure! I know the Lord has a lot of things he wants to teach us this week and we are looking forward to growing!
This week started out with Allison feeling a little under the weather and me starting the week of by myself in pediatrics. It was really neat to get to be in Peds this week. The pediatric ward is composed of a few different rooms: the new born ICU, the ICU, the general ward and then a few private rooms. I was introduced to the nurses and the head nurse of the Peds floor who then introduced me to the doctors who were just about to start making their rounds. There are two Nigerian doctors and then a missionary doctor and they are all so kind and compassionate. We started in the new born ICU where the tiny babies stay under incubators. There were three babies in the room and two were premature babies. One of the babies had just been born the day before and was weighing 800 grams!!! That is only 1.76 pounds!! This little baby had feet the size of half my little pinky finger! It was so tiny and I was in awe that the child was still breathing and its heart was still thumping and it was surviving on the cruel earth for a little while.
We continued with rounds and saw each child and talked with the mothers and discussed the drug regiments and the progress and any new findings. It was very interesting and I really find it fascinating how much time the doctors spend really pouring over their patients each day. After rounds one of the doctors took me up to the PEPFAR clinic, a clinic that is funded by President Bush that provides medicine and clinical care for children with HIV. I sat and watched mother and child after mother and child walk in and out of the clinic room door and listened to each story and my heart began to wonder. How did each of these mothers get HIV? Was by a careless mistake or was it by a choice not of their own? And why in the world would God allow innocent little children to be harmed by this deadly virus? My heart began to wonder, and yet I could find no answers as I searched their faces.
My day ended at the hospital and I returned to find Allison looking and feeling better. Later in the afternoon we had our first real Nigerian visit! The culture here is that when a friend is in the area they call on you, and one of the staff members for the camp this upcoming week that we had met at training came calling with two of her friends that live on the Evangel compound. It was really fun to have three Nigerian girls our age over and we served them food (you have to offer them snacks at least or else you are considered very very stingy). Just as they were about to leave we received a text message from our friend Joseph who is here working with City Ministries with SIM that said he was at Evangel because a guy who was with a team that had just arrived from Joseph’s home church had broken both of his legs. Tim, Dan, Allison and I got ourselves a bite of dinner and then hurried down to the “Injection Room” which is their ER. There on a stretcher we saw him: a boy of 15 years old with two fractures, we saw the x-rays later showing a compound fracture of the femur in his left leg and fracture of the right tibia. His sister was also on the team and they had a doctor on the team, so Joseph and the two of them were standing with him. They all looked worried, tired and unsure of what was to come. Although having bleeding legs and both broken in the middle of Africa may seem like a very terrible thing (and it is), God is good. God for-saw everything that was to take place that night and is to be glorified!! SO IT JUST SO HAPPENS (wink wink) that an Orthopedic Surgeon from the U.S.A is here this month!! WOW! So they called him up (he is living on the compound) and he came down and they were able to do the surgery. During the surgery Allison and I hosted Katie (the sister) Jospeh and the medical doctor from the team (Dr. Martin). It was really neat to get to all gather and debrief and pray together as the surgery took place. It was so obvious that the Lord had His hand throughout the entire night and the following few days. It ended up that Nathan (the boy) had to be evacuated (flown out of the country for further medical attention) because he would need furter surgery with tools that were unavailable here. However, the orthopedic surgeon here was able to do an excellent job and stabilized him without any complications. The entire community rallied around Nathan and he was a trooper. It was really neat to see how the body of believers is just like one big family: Nathan’s parents were not here with him, but he had people coming and providing care for him in the hospital from the organization and loving him as their own child.
*SIGH* and THAT was just Monday!!
Tuesday was the same with pediatrics and care and then helping take care of Nathan a bit. Wednesday felt like it was going to start out the same as Tuesday had, but it started out at the bedside of a very sick little girl. This four week old little girl had presented to the hospital with history of fever and severe abdominal distention. It seemed after examination and assessment that this child was in severe condition and if not treated soon with a surgical relief and cleansing of the abdomen, the respirations would get worse and the child would soon die. So they called in the surgeon and he agreed to do the surgery, but only under one condition: that the parents know the risk of the child dying on the table during surgery because of the small measure of health the little girl had left. The doctors began consulting the parents and the Uncle that was there about the surgery and the consequences of having the surgery and not having the surgery. The mother was crying and the family was allowed time to talk with each other. I was sure that when they came back in, because of the way the doctors presented the case, the family would chose to do the surgery. But when the came back in the Uncle said “We are not satisfied with the surgery” and they refused to have it done! As the words that seemed to dictate the life of this small and beautiful child rolled off of his lips, my heart felt like it had fallen out of my chest and broken into a million pieces onto the floor. I had to turn away from the family as a tear invaded my eye and I tried to fight the emotions that began to burn. I gazed at the precious face of the little one, struggling, gasping for breathe, for life, for a chance to become someone, to be loved on this earth. Allison and I were not able to stay around and watch how it ended but as we walked away to hitch a ride to Gidan Bege we heard the Doctors struggling to talk to the parents again about their decision. NO: you do not want to take your child back to the village, she will die before you reach the gate if she is not on oxygen. YES: we want to know things like why you gave your child a spicy concoction of chile pepper, when for a child of just a few weeks that is poison to the GI tract. As Allison and I walked in silence back to our apartment to change our clothes, tears finally began streaming down my face. “It’s just so unfair. I can understand adult death, but a child who does not chose her own life or death, WHY? Why would God allow such existence? He cannot take pleasure in such an existence? and How can the human soul be so twisted so as to in fact poison their own young?” These thoughts and so many others rushed through my head but none so clear as the one that I kept coming back to: “Be still, and know that I AM GOD” the Lord seemed to keep saying to me. We were headed off to Gidan Bege and I breathed a sigh of surrender and said allowed to Allison, “I have to giver her up”. What I meant by this statement was not that I had to leave hope that this child would live, but that I had to bring all my doubts and my questions and surrender them to the feet of Jesus and admit I cannot understand why things happen the way they do, but I am not God, and I do not see the way that the Lord is working in each person’s life for His glory. Allison reminded me that the Lord looks down on that little girl with far more love than we could ever have for her, and how much more does it pain Him to watch her suffer? So we tried to set the sadness aside so that we could continue on in our ministry to the widows at Gidan Bege and then the medical outreach at Blind Town, but we were both eager to find out what had happened. That evening a few minutes after we got home, our phone rang and it was the pediatrician from the United States. He said “Hi, I know you guys were concerned about the baby we were seeing today, I just wanted to let you know that the parents did end up consenting to the surgery and that they did not find anything definitive in the abdomen, but they found a lot of pus. So they cleaned out the abdomen and sewed her back up and she is doing pretty well. I just got to go down and pray over the baby and her mom with a few others, and I know you guys wanted to be praying as well. Some babies are just meant to make it through. Her name is Blessing...”
So with exceeding joy I thanked him for the update and told Allison the news. We were both so glad to hear that Blessing was stable and had gotten the surgery she needed! It was as if I almost heard God say to me “You see child, I love this little one as much as I love anyone, and I am listening to prayers, why don’t you trust me? Have I ever been unfaithful?” No. The answer is no, God has never been unfaithful. He may not answer our prayers the way we think they should be answered but that does not mean He does not answer them at all. He is a loving God, a merciful God, one that desires to give a weeping mother her child back from the graves edge, a God who has all healing power and is limited by nothing. Blessing is stable now and thanks to so many of your prayers is on the road to full recovery. We serve a BIG God, but He is also tender. He hears when His children weep, and He weeps with us. Let us never underestimate the tenderness of God’s heart and so shake our fist at him when we see pain in this world. How much more does pain and suffering of the little children make God cry? He must be so eager to restore the earth and in fact then make a new heaven and earth, where pain and suffering are no more. I learned about the tenderness of God’s heart this week.
The ministry of serving the widows in the clinic at Gidan Bege was really awesome! I wrote about it in my first blog, and it was similar to this week. Except this week there were not a lot of medial personnel, only Allison and I and then two other Nigerian Nurses who are trained in community health. It was really fun to be working in the clinic, to have the 41 women that we served walk through the door, for me to practice all my Hausa greetings, for Allison and I to take their blood pressure and then to discuss their problems that they complained of and give them medication. It was really neat to get to see face after face come through the door, knowing that they were there so that we could help them in the name of our Lord. What an honor it is to be the hands of Jesus! We then took the medical bags and Allison and I split up and one of us went with one of the Nurses and one with the other and there was a big team that split up and went with us also. I was really glad the Lord had allowed us to get a ride to Gidan Bege, because they were a little short staffed for Blind Town’s medical outreach since only one in the team was a doctor. I was able to go into the houses with Vicky, the nurse, and while she was talking with the people and translating I would take a few blood pressures and begin handing out medications. I learned how to say “once a day” or “twice a day” in Hausa and I even gave medication to the chief of blind town and told him “twice a day” by myself on the instruction of Vicky! Because the team was there with us, they attracted all the kids. There were so many children that gathered and it drew crowds of at least 40-50 kids. But when the houses are small and the alley ways even smaller, it made for a difficult time to even get around to the people we needed to see. It worked out well though because the team ended up staying in one place, playing with the kids and Vicky and I and only one or two of the other team members would actually go into the house, listen, assess, give the medication and then go to the next house. I was grateful for the team that they were so willing to jump right in and play with the kids, and I was in awe of how Vicky handled the chaos. The Lord is really doing a great work in Blind Town. So many want help and are open to healing. The Lord is using physical healing as a way of manifesting the kind of healing that only He can bring to a life of spiritual disease.
Thursday we went to Gyero which is a village about 10 miles outside of Jos that ECWA owns about 1/3rd of and runs an orphanage on the land. The orphanage is where boys from Gidan Bege who have been there for 6 months are transferred to and then the boys (and now they have about 12 girls) will live there for about 10 years, some more, many less, until they can go to school and learn a trade and be well set in their adulthood physically, emotionally and spiritually. The boys range in ages of 7 to 20 years old and the girls range in ages 6 to 16. It was really encouraging to get to see the ministry because I have heard so much about it with my friends Jaime and Joseph both working out at Gyero. I was really glad for the opportunity to go and play a little with the kids, sing songs with them and take a hike around the village. God is blessing that ministry and it is exciting to see how many lives they are impacting!
Yesterday was back in the Pediatric ward. There was a little baby of 6 weeks of age that we examined who was admitted with respiratory distress. This child is HIV exposed, meaning his mother has HIV but it cannot be confirmed or denied that the child is yet positive. Upon examination the child seemed to have Bronchial pneumonia and/or a condition that goes along with AIDS and the low CD4 count. Again, as I watched the child gasping for air, twitching because of hypoxia, vomiting into its oxygen facemask and receive an NG tube and a tiny catheter to monitor output, I could not help but wonder how it was right or fair that this child was suffering so much for a deadly disease that he did not chose to get or has the chance to fight. The doctors talked with the parents saying that the baby was in really bad condition and they should prepare themselves that he may go. The doctor gently reminded them that they would do anything they could to help the baby, but that the timing of the child’s life is in God’s hands and He is sovereign. These doctors see child after child die and it breaks their heart every time, but they must continue to do their work despite their pain because they save many more lives than they lose and they bring glory to God despite the circumstances. I pray that I never lose sight of the fact that every life is precious and that I continue to learn how to be tender-hearted because God is tender-hearted. But I also pray that I am able to have strength and understanding and a peace that passes all understanding because God is the giver and taker of life and only He knows the plans for each of our lives.
May you all continue to remember that life is precious and that God is tender-hearted. He weeps when you weep and longs to wrap you in his arms when you are hurting. Do not think we serve a cold-hearted God. He will be the first one standing at the gate of heaven to lovingly welcome the little baby into His arms and embrace Him in a place where there will be no more tears of sorrow or pain. Praise God, for He is worthy of all our admiration, adoration and reverence!
Maranatha!
Alisha
PRAISES
-Blessing is doing well and is stable!
-Nathan flew out and is in South Africa getting the second surgery on his legs and is doing well with no signs of infection or further complications
-Allison and I are staying healthy
PRAYER
-For camp this week, that the Lord would prepare the hearts of the campers to hear what He wants to teach them, for strength and health for all and especially wisdom and endurance for Allison and I
-For the little ones who are ill and dying and for the parents of all the little ones.
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