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.