A Great Reminder

The last two weeks have been full of very different experiences! To start off, Corey preached in a church in the bush and our good friend Choveque translated for him in Makuwa. God has really helped Corey’s language improve daily and he was able to do the whole sermon in Portuguese. Imagine that…the first time he ever preaches, it’s in a different language. He shared with the congregation the importance of sharing the gospel with people. God worked through him and he did an amazing job with God’s strength! It was also the very first sermon Jenni understood completely, from start to finish! It’s much easier to understand the “Americanized” Portuguese! The church we went to was literally out in the middle of nowhere. The people were so friendly there…they gave us a chicken and some peanuts as we left. They also insisted on making us lunch. The people out there are so poor, but they are so generous and giving. We were overwhelmed by their kindness. It was such a blessing to have the opportunity to minister and be ministered to as well.

Over the last month, Jenni has had several opportunities to use her nursing skills to help the nationals we work with, as well as the missionary community. Last week, our guard’s wife, Claudia, became very ill and had so much pain she couldn’t sleep at night. We went to her house to visit her and to see if Jenni could help figure out what was wrong. Every time she would go to the doctor, they would give her a different medicine and tell her to go home, not explaining anything. The first time we saw her, she had a central pain in her belly, but no other symptoms. Then the next day she was in excruciating pain and showed classic signs of appendicitis (her pain moved to the right lower side). We tried very hard to convince her she needed to go to the emergency room, and she finally agreed. Once we arrived, she said NOTHING. Jenni had to speak to all of the doctors for her. Only when she was asked a question did she say yes or no. Patients are so timid and the doctors and nurses have no compassion. When they checked for appendicitis, the pushed so hard on her belly…to which she screamed in pain. This happened 5 different times. They weren’t convinced it was a appendicitis…so what did they do??? Gave her a prescription for diarrhea and sent her home. Not once in the last 6 months has she even had diarrhea. This type of situation shows us the need of powerful prayer since it is only God, our Great Physician, who can heal her.

A couple of nights ago, Choveque called us at 1 am to ask us to pick up him and his 9 month baby Ivan and take them to the hospital. Ivan had severe diarrhea and vomiting which had caused him to be severely dehydrated. We took him to the most ghetto bush hospital…it gave us the creeps. Choveque said to the nurse, “My son has diarrhea,” and that was it. They wrote a prescription to STOP the diarrhea. No more information asked for and no more was given. We told Choveque not to give that medicine as it could kill Ivan, and instead we gave him some oral re-hydration drinks. We took them home and prayed with them. Ivan was better within hours!!! He has totally recuperated, which is a miracle. Dehydration kills most children here. We saw the healing hand of God!

Unfortunately, whatever Ivan had….Corey has. Corey has been vomiting/diarrhea and is really weak. So what are we going to do??? We are going to take him to Nampula Hospital and have the most compassionate people heal him! Yeah right!!! We, as well as our national friends, are calling on our Great Physician to display His healing power. So often we forget that it is God that allows medicine to work in the bodies He has created in the first place. We should always go to Him first, whether we live in a place with excellent health care, or totally incompetent health care. He is the only One able to sustain, heal, protect, and cure! Our experiences this week have really brought us to our knees and humbled us. We can’t trust in anything but our God! We are grateful that God reminds of this truth through trials like these.

Please pray: 1) God would heal Corey and restore his health quickly, 2) Pray for Claudia and that God would continue to take away the pain she has, 3) Pray for leaders to emerge from our TLW group. Pray that their walk with the Lord would deepen each week as we meet. 4) Pray for wisdom and clarity for us as we are starting to make some big decisions about coming home in 4 months.