I know it’s a little early for this post, but if you know me you know that I’ve been listening to Christmas music for weeks now anyway, so really a Christmas blog shouldn’t surprise you that much. One night earlier this week Abby, Sarah, and I decorated for Christmas. Our duplex-mates are going to be in America for the holidays, so guess who gets to borrow all their stuff including a Christmas tree! We had so much fun putting everything up. The thermometer in our house said it was 96 degrees and we were sweating pretty profusely, but at least it was starting to LOOK like Christmas even if it didn’t so much FEEL like it yet :)
AND oh my goodness. Yesterday I picked up my Christmas “package” from my church family at Bear Creek Community Church in Cresson, Texas. I say “package” in quotation marks because this sucker was, in fact, an enormous trunk full of fantasticness. When the men at the airport found the trunk, they weren’t sure if it was mine (and neither was I) because some of the numbers and my name had rubbed off, so they opened it up and I think the air freight handlers were pretty jealous. As Abby said, “That is one big box of happiness.” It was absolutely FULL of American food/candy/coffee, health & beauty products (you should see all this nail polish), journals, jewelry, Christmas music (yay!), Christmas decorations, and more stuff than I ever could have imagined. And check out this awesomeness…it had a ton of WRAPPED Christmas presents so now we have presents under our tree! Thank you so much, Bear Creek family. I love you and miss you so much that there are tears in my eyes right now.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
A Heart-Breaking Couple of Days
A volunteer team came in a couple weeks ago to do some dental clinics. The team consisted of 2 dentists, a pastor and his wife, and 3 more women to assist the dentists and do whatever else needed doing. We did one clinic in the big city for the Sunny people and another people group we call the “Hidden” people, but before that we headed out to the bush.
One of the women who came over with the group is Mrs. B; she’s a nurse and she served with our company for 33 years in another West African country. In the first village, on our first clinic day, she went around to different huts to see if anyone needed some basic wound care. She came across a woman I’ll call “Becka.” She was lying in a dark room by herself. Becka is literally missing half of her face because it is rotting away. When you look at her right side you can see bone, teeth, and tongue. And her right eyeball is gone. Abby said that when she first walked into the hut she immediately thought a dead animal was in there because of the way it smelled. Mrs. B and a couple others took her to a bush clinic where they were told that nothing could be done there and to go to the hospital in the nearest town. So they went to the hospital in the nearest town (where we were staying) and were told that she must go to the capital (which is 4 hours away) to get the treatment she needs. Mrs. B and Nafi (my supervisor) both said that Becka’s face is the worst thing they’ve ever seen in Africa…and they have a combined 47 years of experience living here. It was a miracle that she was even still alive.
Abby, Sarah, and I were heading back into the city the next day so we and Nafi decided that the best course of action would be for us to bring Becka, her mother, and her uncle with us. Nafi came to our room to discuss what the next day or two might look like. The girl and her family don’t speak Sunny and we don’t speak French or Bambara so somebody was lined up to translate at the hospital between us, the family, and the doctors. By taking them to the hospital, we were wordlessly assuming all responsibility for this woman, including finances, so we discussed how that would work and what we should say. Nafi told us how to get to a couple of the different places we may need, how to be assertive if the hospitals refused care…just a lot of different things that we hadn’t yet experienced. She even told us it was okay if we needed to pull the truck over and throw up because of the smell. There were a couple of contingency plans discussed, then Nafi said, “If she dies in the truck, this is what you need to do…” I hadn’t seen Becka yet. I knew it was bad. I knew she was dying, but I didn’t really know.
So the next morning we picked up Becka, her mother, and her uncle. The Lord is so good. The hours flew by, the smell seemed dulled, and we arrived in the capital. We spent the rest of the day driving around to various hospitals and clinics until we were finally told where we needed to be. The clinic was closed on the weekend so we made plans to go first thing Monday morning. Before leaving, our translator shared the gospel with Becka and her mom and prayed for them. Then we drove them to the house of some family they had in town, gave them some money for food and transportation over the weekend, and left.
At this point, we’d been told that Becka had a disease called NOMA and that the clinic in town was run by a non-governmental organization who would perform all the treatment at no cost. We looked up as much as we could about this disease and looked at various images online…none of which compared to Becka. We read about the predisposing factors for NOMA, all of which are prevalent in an African village. We learned that most victims of this disease are children, even though Becka is just a couple of years younger than I am. And we learned that the survival rate for this disease is almost non-existent. We were pretty down…but not defeated, knowing that we serve the Great Physician.
We picked the family up on Monday morning and headed to the clinic. After waiting a while (long enough for Abby & I to go put oil in our truck), we were told to go to another branch of the clinic. So we got in our truck, our translators got in their truck, and we all followed a man on a moto to the other place. We were seen by the doctor that some co-workers had already told us about (they have experience with this disease and a little boy they know). He took her to an examination room and then brought our translator, Abby, Sarah, and me into his office. He began talking to Mrs. L (our translator) in French. Some things he had said had obviously surprised her…and even disappointed her. After they finished their conversation, she told us that the doctor said he knew Becka. He said she’d been in to see him 4 months before and that the treatment plan had been laid out for her already. Her family already knew that the treatment would be a long process and that it would all be at no cost. Then he said what I didn’t see coming: that she has AIDS. She’d been told at the previous visit that she would need to take anti-virals in order to even get her body strong enough to be treated for NOMA. We asked if she’d been taking them so he went to ask her and found out that she had not. It was such a gut-punch. I know this sounds horrible, but all of a sudden it seemed pointless to try to treat the skin disease when she was dying of AIDS. And it seemed pointless to try to get her the treatment she needs when, for whatever reason, she hadn’t been complying with what had already been prescribed.
We were told that their transportation back to their family’s house in the capital would be provided and that we could leave. We met up with Nafi and the rest of the team coming in from the bush for lunch. After a small debriefing, we were able to once again see how God is at work. The last couple of hours had been frustrating and disappointing, but it doesn’t change the fact that God has a plan…a perfect plan, with perfect timing. God is really up to something in the people group of Becka and her family. He has raised up new believers, sent more workers, and given a hunger for His Word and a curiosity in His Son. We don’t know what’s going to happen with Becka, but we know that it will be for His glory. She is currently undergoing treatment at the clinic for AIDS to get her strong enough to move to another clinic closer to her village where she can stay and be treated for NOMA. Please pray for her. Pray for her body and pray that the words of the gospel that she has now heard will take root in her heart so that she can be a testimony to her family and others in her village.
One of the women who came over with the group is Mrs. B; she’s a nurse and she served with our company for 33 years in another West African country. In the first village, on our first clinic day, she went around to different huts to see if anyone needed some basic wound care. She came across a woman I’ll call “Becka.” She was lying in a dark room by herself. Becka is literally missing half of her face because it is rotting away. When you look at her right side you can see bone, teeth, and tongue. And her right eyeball is gone. Abby said that when she first walked into the hut she immediately thought a dead animal was in there because of the way it smelled. Mrs. B and a couple others took her to a bush clinic where they were told that nothing could be done there and to go to the hospital in the nearest town. So they went to the hospital in the nearest town (where we were staying) and were told that she must go to the capital (which is 4 hours away) to get the treatment she needs. Mrs. B and Nafi (my supervisor) both said that Becka’s face is the worst thing they’ve ever seen in Africa…and they have a combined 47 years of experience living here. It was a miracle that she was even still alive.
Abby, Sarah, and I were heading back into the city the next day so we and Nafi decided that the best course of action would be for us to bring Becka, her mother, and her uncle with us. Nafi came to our room to discuss what the next day or two might look like. The girl and her family don’t speak Sunny and we don’t speak French or Bambara so somebody was lined up to translate at the hospital between us, the family, and the doctors. By taking them to the hospital, we were wordlessly assuming all responsibility for this woman, including finances, so we discussed how that would work and what we should say. Nafi told us how to get to a couple of the different places we may need, how to be assertive if the hospitals refused care…just a lot of different things that we hadn’t yet experienced. She even told us it was okay if we needed to pull the truck over and throw up because of the smell. There were a couple of contingency plans discussed, then Nafi said, “If she dies in the truck, this is what you need to do…” I hadn’t seen Becka yet. I knew it was bad. I knew she was dying, but I didn’t really know.
So the next morning we picked up Becka, her mother, and her uncle. The Lord is so good. The hours flew by, the smell seemed dulled, and we arrived in the capital. We spent the rest of the day driving around to various hospitals and clinics until we were finally told where we needed to be. The clinic was closed on the weekend so we made plans to go first thing Monday morning. Before leaving, our translator shared the gospel with Becka and her mom and prayed for them. Then we drove them to the house of some family they had in town, gave them some money for food and transportation over the weekend, and left.
At this point, we’d been told that Becka had a disease called NOMA and that the clinic in town was run by a non-governmental organization who would perform all the treatment at no cost. We looked up as much as we could about this disease and looked at various images online…none of which compared to Becka. We read about the predisposing factors for NOMA, all of which are prevalent in an African village. We learned that most victims of this disease are children, even though Becka is just a couple of years younger than I am. And we learned that the survival rate for this disease is almost non-existent. We were pretty down…but not defeated, knowing that we serve the Great Physician.
We picked the family up on Monday morning and headed to the clinic. After waiting a while (long enough for Abby & I to go put oil in our truck), we were told to go to another branch of the clinic. So we got in our truck, our translators got in their truck, and we all followed a man on a moto to the other place. We were seen by the doctor that some co-workers had already told us about (they have experience with this disease and a little boy they know). He took her to an examination room and then brought our translator, Abby, Sarah, and me into his office. He began talking to Mrs. L (our translator) in French. Some things he had said had obviously surprised her…and even disappointed her. After they finished their conversation, she told us that the doctor said he knew Becka. He said she’d been in to see him 4 months before and that the treatment plan had been laid out for her already. Her family already knew that the treatment would be a long process and that it would all be at no cost. Then he said what I didn’t see coming: that she has AIDS. She’d been told at the previous visit that she would need to take anti-virals in order to even get her body strong enough to be treated for NOMA. We asked if she’d been taking them so he went to ask her and found out that she had not. It was such a gut-punch. I know this sounds horrible, but all of a sudden it seemed pointless to try to treat the skin disease when she was dying of AIDS. And it seemed pointless to try to get her the treatment she needs when, for whatever reason, she hadn’t been complying with what had already been prescribed.
We were told that their transportation back to their family’s house in the capital would be provided and that we could leave. We met up with Nafi and the rest of the team coming in from the bush for lunch. After a small debriefing, we were able to once again see how God is at work. The last couple of hours had been frustrating and disappointing, but it doesn’t change the fact that God has a plan…a perfect plan, with perfect timing. God is really up to something in the people group of Becka and her family. He has raised up new believers, sent more workers, and given a hunger for His Word and a curiosity in His Son. We don’t know what’s going to happen with Becka, but we know that it will be for His glory. She is currently undergoing treatment at the clinic for AIDS to get her strong enough to move to another clinic closer to her village where she can stay and be treated for NOMA. Please pray for her. Pray for her body and pray that the words of the gospel that she has now heard will take root in her heart so that she can be a testimony to her family and others in her village.
New Digs
Okay, so we are all nice and settled in our new home in the big city. After the relocation, we lived at the company’s guest house for about 2 ½ months. Even though all 3 of us (and all of our stuff) were crammed into one room, it was really pretty fun. We got to meet volunteer teams who came over from America and it was always encouraging to share with them what we’re here for and learn more about them and their home churches. PLUS they’d leave us their leftovers…hello Starbucks and bacon!
At the end of October we moved into a more permanent residence and it is really, really great. It’s a nice place and it immediately felt like home. Each of us has our own room, there’s 2 bathrooms, a nice living/dining room area, and a kitchen. And because a lot of people were moving back to America right before we moved in, we inherited a TON of stuff…food, cabinets, armoires, more cabinets…a coffeemaker…and a microwave!
The best part is that it’s a duplex and we share it with another family who works for the same company. The couple is about my age and they have a 1-year-old son…who is SO STINKING CUTE. They are amazing…they have us over to eat, play games, or just hang out. And one day all 6 of us piled into the truck and went downtown to the big market to shop, listening to Christmas music the whole time. It felt like a family outing. We are so thankful for them and a new place to live!
At the end of October we moved into a more permanent residence and it is really, really great. It’s a nice place and it immediately felt like home. Each of us has our own room, there’s 2 bathrooms, a nice living/dining room area, and a kitchen. And because a lot of people were moving back to America right before we moved in, we inherited a TON of stuff…food, cabinets, armoires, more cabinets…a coffeemaker…and a microwave!
The best part is that it’s a duplex and we share it with another family who works for the same company. The couple is about my age and they have a 1-year-old son…who is SO STINKING CUTE. They are amazing…they have us over to eat, play games, or just hang out. And one day all 6 of us piled into the truck and went downtown to the big market to shop, listening to Christmas music the whole time. It felt like a family outing. We are so thankful for them and a new place to live!
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