Sunday, October 31, 2010
I need to appologize for not keeping everyone updated. I'm sure the word probably already got out to many that Baby 2 (named Isaac Nathaniel) didn't make it. Despite my heart breaking over the situation with him, there is still joy as his brother, Jabez Daniel, has a strong will to live and is, no doubt, getting stronger with each day. After nearly two weeks in the hospital, they just discharged this last Tuesday (Still fighting a fever and having just hit a whopping 1.68 or so kg!) His pressure sore is healing nicely. He still needs prayers as our situation for caring for him is far from ideal...
When it comes to describing him, precious would be an understatement and others assure me that it's not simply my prejudice that assures me of this. Especially since he's in my lap at the internet cafe right now and I just looked down in time to see him smile!:)
Thursday, October 14, 2010
10/14/10
Please pray for Moenuh (Baby # 2)! While Moesuh seems to be improving, Moenuh is in more critical condition. They transported him by ambulance this morning to the NICU at the Maesot hospital. He has an ET tube in now and they transported him so he can be on a ventilator. The doctor thinks it's pneumonia. It hurts to not be able to be with him (I had to stay here in Metta with Moesuh). Jason will try to see him today and hopefully I'll have an update later.
Please pray for Moenuh (Baby # 2)! While Moesuh seems to be improving, Moenuh is in more critical condition. They transported him by ambulance this morning to the NICU at the Maesot hospital. He has an ET tube in now and they transported him so he can be on a ventilator. The doctor thinks it's pneumonia. It hurts to not be able to be with him (I had to stay here in Metta with Moesuh). Jason will try to see him today and hopefully I'll have an update later.
Moesuh and Monuh (i.e. Baby 1 & Baby 2)
Monuh, yesterday with his feeding tube in.
The sores on their legs, ect. are definitely looking better!
Moesuh! He makes the half-sized bottle look big.
Moesuh's pressure sore. It's looking better! (Please forgive me if these are too disturbing to anyone...)
My personal favorite picture.:)
Baby 1 and Baby 2
I was right in the midst of my delectable rice supper last night when Thara Ehgnyaw came breezing in the door and proceeded to tell me that there was a family who had a child they couldn't care for and would like for us to care for. Could we take it? My immediate response was, "Yes!" before calling him back to add, "Uh, well...I guess I really should ask Emily." To my surprise (considering the burden she already carries with our five) she also had an almost instantaneous positive response. Before we knew it our perspective child was actually one-month-old twin boys. *gulp*
Were they healthy?
Yes.
Did they have both parents?
Yes, but the mother didn't have milk for them.
An hour later found me in a villager's truck (our's currently being broken down and at the mechanic's shop in Maesot) and headed toward the mountain village where the family lives.
Now generally mother's have nine months or so notice to the impending arrival of their baby. It's a weird feeling to have had about an hour more or less to assimilate this news and to be sitting there still trying to grasp the complete significance of what's really happening here, but yet completely aware that your life will never be quite the same again. Scared to death and yet so thrilled...
Grasping for more information - any information - I questioned again as to if the babies were healthy. "Yes, they are." That's all I was getting. More probing, "Are they thin?" Again, "Yes."
That was it.
In my mind's eye I saw two cuddly and cooing little bundles.
But what was that?
As we approached through the dim light of our flashlights I saw a woman standing at the bottom of the bamboo ladder leading up to the small hut with a small roll in her arms. A baby? No, it couldn't be. But...that looked like a head, if a ridiculously minature one.
My heart sank. Nothing had prepared me for this. The babies were obviously in bad shape. It was all I could do to sit still, smile pleasantly, and listen politely to the chatter around me when all I wanted to do was grab up the little things and run as fast as I could away from here and to a place where we could give them a chance at life. At my astonished inquiry as to their real age I was firmly assured that they were indeed one-month-old. {I later learned that they were born at the family's hut 2 months prematurely.} Never had I encountered anything like this before.
How can I even describe... The best comparison I could think of would be to a little naked baby bird. They're skin was draped pitifully in loose, dry folds over their so minature little frames. Obviously dehydrated as well as malnourished.
Mercifully, we did leave shortly. I felt so bad for Emily and Jason who were waiting expectantly at the house, with even less warning than I had had. There is really no way you can view a pitiful little thing like that without some level of shock.
At the family's hut in the candlelight I'd gotten a quick preview of what lay beneath the material they were wrapped in, just enough to know it was bad, but nothing had prepared me to uncover one of them and discover the most awful hole in his back, a pressure sore from neglect. It didn't take us long to decide that they needed to be in the ER as quickly as possible. So we rushed off in Bradley's truck, Tharamoo Gayle with one baby and me with the other.
At the hospital they insisted that they needed to have a mother's name for them and as I didn't know the mother's name the doctor asked if they could put me down as the mother. So the little things are currently labled "Maria's baby 1" and "Maria's baby 2."
As expected, they were admitted. I heard from one doctor that their stay may be over a week and from another that it could be four weeks.
Today they weighed in at 3.2 lbs. Just this afternoon they put them in incubators in the nurse's station, leaving me feeling truly helpless. One of them isn't sucking like the other one and has a feeding tube in. It's so hard to just have to stand there and watch it all.
They're truly a miracle right now and I'm believing that they'll be a miracle next week!
They're so precious! I'll do my best to have pictures on soon.
Were they healthy?
Yes.
Did they have both parents?
Yes, but the mother didn't have milk for them.
An hour later found me in a villager's truck (our's currently being broken down and at the mechanic's shop in Maesot) and headed toward the mountain village where the family lives.
Now generally mother's have nine months or so notice to the impending arrival of their baby. It's a weird feeling to have had about an hour more or less to assimilate this news and to be sitting there still trying to grasp the complete significance of what's really happening here, but yet completely aware that your life will never be quite the same again. Scared to death and yet so thrilled...
Grasping for more information - any information - I questioned again as to if the babies were healthy. "Yes, they are." That's all I was getting. More probing, "Are they thin?" Again, "Yes."
That was it.
In my mind's eye I saw two cuddly and cooing little bundles.
But what was that?
As we approached through the dim light of our flashlights I saw a woman standing at the bottom of the bamboo ladder leading up to the small hut with a small roll in her arms. A baby? No, it couldn't be. But...that looked like a head, if a ridiculously minature one.
My heart sank. Nothing had prepared me for this. The babies were obviously in bad shape. It was all I could do to sit still, smile pleasantly, and listen politely to the chatter around me when all I wanted to do was grab up the little things and run as fast as I could away from here and to a place where we could give them a chance at life. At my astonished inquiry as to their real age I was firmly assured that they were indeed one-month-old. {I later learned that they were born at the family's hut 2 months prematurely.} Never had I encountered anything like this before.
How can I even describe... The best comparison I could think of would be to a little naked baby bird. They're skin was draped pitifully in loose, dry folds over their so minature little frames. Obviously dehydrated as well as malnourished.
Mercifully, we did leave shortly. I felt so bad for Emily and Jason who were waiting expectantly at the house, with even less warning than I had had. There is really no way you can view a pitiful little thing like that without some level of shock.
At the family's hut in the candlelight I'd gotten a quick preview of what lay beneath the material they were wrapped in, just enough to know it was bad, but nothing had prepared me to uncover one of them and discover the most awful hole in his back, a pressure sore from neglect. It didn't take us long to decide that they needed to be in the ER as quickly as possible. So we rushed off in Bradley's truck, Tharamoo Gayle with one baby and me with the other.
At the hospital they insisted that they needed to have a mother's name for them and as I didn't know the mother's name the doctor asked if they could put me down as the mother. So the little things are currently labled "Maria's baby 1" and "Maria's baby 2."
As expected, they were admitted. I heard from one doctor that their stay may be over a week and from another that it could be four weeks.
Today they weighed in at 3.2 lbs. Just this afternoon they put them in incubators in the nurse's station, leaving me feeling truly helpless. One of them isn't sucking like the other one and has a feeding tube in. It's so hard to just have to stand there and watch it all.
They're truly a miracle right now and I'm believing that they'll be a miracle next week!
They're so precious! I'll do my best to have pictures on soon.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not?
What comes to your mind at the words one thousand children? Yes, numeral one-zero-zero-zero.
Do you see some kind of mega-sized school playground milling with happy kids? Or an auditorium full of eager and expectant little faces? Or do you think of a cozy town with each house full of content and wriggling little beings gathered around the kitchen table? Or even some orphanage somewhere feeding and caring for all the ones who have no homes? Of course you hear noise and laughter. You see smiles and little sticky hands. You feel warmth and cheer.
Or do you?
What if instead you think of one thousand children huddling together in the jungle. Due to the political unrest and fighting they’ve had to leave their homes and families - if they had homes and families. Enough food? Clean clothes? Warm blankets? Not likely.
Several days ago we were very seriously informed that within 1-3 weeks we can expect to see around one thousand children arrive here at our school.
One thousand children
Right now they’re supposedly across on the Burma side of the river that's beside us hiding out in the jungle preparing to cross. And we’re told that none of them want to go to the refugee camp. They all want to come to school here.
How can we possibly take them, or even a fraction of them? And yet how can we say no? It hurts my heart to think about it.
Let the little children come unto Me...
We’re supposed to be His hands and His feet. What if they would never get another opportunity to learn to know God?
We’ve been firmly advised to send them away. That we can’t take them, already being maxed out. “You can’t save the world.” I didn’t like that. At all.
The fact of the matter is that we may not be able to feed them – but God can. We feel like we need to at least take in any orphans… What’s wisdom? What’s love?
Please pray for us!
Do you see some kind of mega-sized school playground milling with happy kids? Or an auditorium full of eager and expectant little faces? Or do you think of a cozy town with each house full of content and wriggling little beings gathered around the kitchen table? Or even some orphanage somewhere feeding and caring for all the ones who have no homes? Of course you hear noise and laughter. You see smiles and little sticky hands. You feel warmth and cheer.
Or do you?
What if instead you think of one thousand children huddling together in the jungle. Due to the political unrest and fighting they’ve had to leave their homes and families - if they had homes and families. Enough food? Clean clothes? Warm blankets? Not likely.
Several days ago we were very seriously informed that within 1-3 weeks we can expect to see around one thousand children arrive here at our school.
One thousand children
Right now they’re supposedly across on the Burma side of the river that's beside us hiding out in the jungle preparing to cross. And we’re told that none of them want to go to the refugee camp. They all want to come to school here.
How can we possibly take them, or even a fraction of them? And yet how can we say no? It hurts my heart to think about it.
Let the little children come unto Me...
We’re supposed to be His hands and His feet. What if they would never get another opportunity to learn to know God?
We’ve been firmly advised to send them away. That we can’t take them, already being maxed out. “You can’t save the world.” I didn’t like that. At all.
The fact of the matter is that we may not be able to feed them – but God can. We feel like we need to at least take in any orphans… What’s wisdom? What’s love?
Please pray for us!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
CPR Training
The beginning of class out on the porch in our babies' "play-pen." Bamboo is awesome!
Pulse is absent...
The boys in action.
In the absence of "dummies" we thought to use the more realistic ones...;) Actually, we had a couple of rice bags to practice on, but they didn't seem very enthralled with that option. They preferred trying it on eachother. I just had to do my best to impress very deeply upon them that we were playing here or they could really have inflicted some damage.:)
That was a fun class to teach. They're amazing kids! Several weeks ago now (while I was gone) two of my best students left the school, which left a big hole in our class. So we pulled in two more, a boy and a girl, bringing the number back up to 8 again. Then the next day I arrived at class only to be asked to please let another one of our girls join. How could I say no? So now there's a total of 9 students. I was concerned that they wouldn't be able to understand as well or catch up with the others, but so far they've been excellent and I'm very glad to have them in the class!
Another big blessing has been to have Tharamoo Gayle back at our school for a little while. This last week she's done the majority of the teaching for them. She's been focusing on the a & p portion of it and I'm so glad for them to get a much better foundation and understanding of that.
LMT Training
Here's a post that I've meant to put up for months. I appologize for not giving an update on this sooner.
Quite a few months ago now I posted about my plans for training some of our students who were interested in doing medical work. I mentioned that I'd like to be able to at the end of the training give each of them their own backpack with basic medical supplies such as stethoscopes, bp cuffs, thermometers, otoscopes, ect. so that they could return to their own villages (some of their villages are deep into Burma where there is no access to medical care) and help their people.
When I wrote that it was simply a dream I had and something I hoped to be able to do, although I didn't know where the funds would come from for something like that. I hadn't even thought that far yet. Neither did it even occur to me that there might be someone out there who would have it in their heart to take that on as a special project to raise money for. Well that's exactly what happened! To my immense surprise and excitement (not to mention the students!) some friends from our homechurch wrote and told me that the youth Sabbath school class would like to make it their project. God really does care about the little details! They've done exactly that! These last few months they've gathered over $800 dollars for the project. Which is more than enough to provide backpacks, stethoscopes, bp cuffs, thermometers, otoscopes, and instruments for suturing.
Last week when I was passing through ChiangMai on my way to Laos for my visa trip I was able to order most of the supplies and then had just enough time on my way back to pick them up as well as find backpacks and get the suturing supplies. It's been so much fun putting everything together. It will be a very special moment when the kids receive them (hopefully either this week or the next one)!
I want to say a huge thank-you, both on my part and the students, for making this a possibility! It really blew me away!
Here's some pictures of a few of our students:
This is SawHaGay. He's 16 and is an excellent student.
Nuklok at her baptism last year. She went ahead and chose to be baptized although her father told her he would disown her.
SayMuOo,15, is the youngest medical student. She does a very excellent job and is a very willing learner.
Nickotoo is 17.
Friday, October 1, 2010
I've had probably 5+ blogs on my heart recently, but life isn't exactly slowing down... And sometimes when you're given the choice between breathing or writing a blog, well...
On Sunday we said goodbye at the bus station to the rest of our family, attempting rather unsuccessfully to keep tears at bay. They've arrived safe and sound at home. And there's no snow yet, or so I hear! Poor Josiah must be crushed!
No sooner did they leave than I committed my first big boo-boo while attempting the feat of coaxing money out of the ATM. I mixed up the passwords. Big no-no. If you don't believe me just try it. The ATM informed me that the account had been closed. To say that I was thoroughly mollified and crushed to itty-bitty tid-bits would be an understatement. I should explain that when an account has been closed there's nothing you can do except appear at the bank with both account owners and there passports. And both of those account owners and there passports were sitting safely on a bus and well on there way to the Bangkok airport. For just an instant we entertained the idea of attempting to beat them to Bangkok and meeting up in hopes that there was something they could do, but it didn't take long for our better judgement to prevail realizing that they already had a two hour headstart on us. There was nothing else to do but wait and pray. Pray I did! I struggled and I struggled. It felt almost as if anything that could have gone wrong that day did. How could I have messed things up so quickly? I prayed for a miracle and a faith that could stand... The next day when we returned I was at peace. The ATM card worked like a dream. I could do little else but run up to the bathroom and fall to my knees. This was my miracle. I needed to see that. I shouldn't have, but I did.
It's an amazing comfort to know that God's got us right in the palm of His hand!
On Sunday we said goodbye at the bus station to the rest of our family, attempting rather unsuccessfully to keep tears at bay. They've arrived safe and sound at home. And there's no snow yet, or so I hear! Poor Josiah must be crushed!
No sooner did they leave than I committed my first big boo-boo while attempting the feat of coaxing money out of the ATM. I mixed up the passwords. Big no-no. If you don't believe me just try it. The ATM informed me that the account had been closed. To say that I was thoroughly mollified and crushed to itty-bitty tid-bits would be an understatement. I should explain that when an account has been closed there's nothing you can do except appear at the bank with both account owners and there passports. And both of those account owners and there passports were sitting safely on a bus and well on there way to the Bangkok airport. For just an instant we entertained the idea of attempting to beat them to Bangkok and meeting up in hopes that there was something they could do, but it didn't take long for our better judgement to prevail realizing that they already had a two hour headstart on us. There was nothing else to do but wait and pray. Pray I did! I struggled and I struggled. It felt almost as if anything that could have gone wrong that day did. How could I have messed things up so quickly? I prayed for a miracle and a faith that could stand... The next day when we returned I was at peace. The ATM card worked like a dream. I could do little else but run up to the bathroom and fall to my knees. This was my miracle. I needed to see that. I shouldn't have, but I did.
It's an amazing comfort to know that God's got us right in the palm of His hand!
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