Witnessing the Work of the Great Physician!

The last few weeks have been pretty intense for the Duncans. Besides being really busy preparing for our HBC team and Jenni’s dad to come, we have been busy being involved in medical emergencies. A couple of weeks ago another missionary family brought their 1 year-old boy (Caleb) to our house for Jenni to evaluate because he wasn’t breathing very well due to what they thought was a case of croup. Jenni then began to treat him using the nebulizer we had received for Corey’s asthma. After trying several different treatments, he still failed to respond to the treatments. From there we decided to take him to world renown Nampula Hospital (see pics) so that he could be on oxygen. So after about 24 hours of terror at Nampula Hospital, and the doctors not thinking he was in “serious condition” until he turned blue, the family decided to have him medically evacuated to Johannesburg. This family didn’t have med-evac insurance so they had to arrange everything themselves, and make full payment before the plane would leave Joburg to come to Nampula. It was $23,000.

This was such a scary thing for us to witness this family almost lose their baby boy, but it was also an amazing display of God’s power as He saved this child’s life. God truly worked a miracle!! Many times we wondered if this boy would make it out of that hospital alive but by the grace of God, The Great Physician, he did. This was also such a touching experience for us as we really saw the body of Christ unite and come together to support this family in probably their darkest hour. It was so awesome to see Christians from America, Brazil, Portugal, and Mozambique rally around this family with love and prayers. It is something we will never forget and something we feel so blessed to have witnessed. Please continue to pray for this baby boy and his family as they are still in Johannesburg waiting for him to come out of the Intensive Care Unit. He is intubated, sedated, and battling some major infections. As we were anxiously waiting for the plane to arrive, God gave us encouragement through His Word. Psalms 41:1-3 says, ..."The Lord will deliver him in a day of trouble. The Lord will protect him and keep him alive. And he shall be called blessed upon the earth...The Lord will sustain him upon his sickbed; in his illness, You restore him to health." These verses spoke and continue to speak to our worrisome hearts!

It was a very long weekend. After 36 hours of no sleep, we went home for some shut eye…and then the phone rang again. Their 2 year old daughter came down with the same symptoms…so Jenni and another nurse set up a clinic in their home and tried to stabilize her as the father frantically tried to get a flight to Johannesburg that night. She responded very well to the treatments that Jenni had given her, and went to Johannesburg and recovered there. She is doing great, praise the Lord! Two days after this happened, we were called for another medical emergency to evacuate a Chinese man that had cerebral malaria. It was pretty stressful, but awesome that God put Jenni’s nursing skills to great use! We stand in awe to see a glimpse of the “bigger” picture. Sometimes we don’t realize how important "little" decisions or circumstances can prepare us for God’s big plans. We have witnessed this a lot in the past weeks and it just makes us amazed. God is so unfathomable and awesome!

In other news we just started a marriage seminar with two other Mozambican couples that we are really excited about. These two couples are good friends of ours and so we are looking forward to getting to know them better and strive together to have more Christ-like marriages. Our main focus and goal for this study is that we would strive to have our marriages reflect the relationship that Christ has with His church. Here is a picture of us taken in front of our house. Please pray that God would transform our marriages through this study. Pray also that God would help us to communicate these biblical principles effectively in Portuguese.

On a sad note and a concern for prayer, we found out today that one of the ladies on our TLW team was abused by her husband for being a part of this team. This past weekend our meeting went a little long and then afterwards she wanted to talk to Jenni about some personal things. Then once she got home he beat her for being so late and ripped up her notebook that we had given her. This notebook contained all of the truths that she has learned from the classes we teach, including her personal reflections on Bible stories and memory verses. She was devastated. We are going to visit her tomorrow and hope to encourage her as well as talk with her husband. We hope to share truth with him and thank him for the time he allows his precious wife to spend with our team. Maybe he will be able to see the good of her participating in this program, and not just the time it takes away from his family. Please pray that this situation would be handled with grace and kindness.

Well we have only 5 days until our team arrives in Nampula! They depart the US in 3 days. Please pray that it will be a great experience for them and that they will have peace of mind, safe travel, little culture shock, little jet lag, good health, protection from Malaria, flexibility, servant’s hearts, and lots of wonderful memories!! They will arrive during a major 4 week holiday for a religion that has a heavy influence here. This holiday has the focus of “searching for God.” Pray that as these M. Mozambicans are searching, they will find the One True God and use our 8 team members as His vessels to share the GOOD NEWS!! We can’t wait til you all get here!!! We are praying for you!

Finally, please be praying for Jenni’s dad. He is having some health issues and will be able to determine what to do this week. He will have an MRI to see if he has a herniated disk in his lower back. He is scheduled to arrive in Nampula in October. Pray that God would heal him before he gets on that plane!