Flight info

Some of you have asked...

We leave out of Johannesburg at 8:25 pm tonight - Delta flight 201, Atlanta to Charleston Delta flight 1791 as it stands now, arriving back in Charleston at 4:21pm. We have a horribly long layover in Atlanta, so we're hoping for some earlier flights. We'll be in touch if this happens!

Thanks for your prayers for safe travels!

Final Clinic Day

Hey friends and family.  Sorry for no blog post yesterday.  I will let Amanda tell you a great story that led to the delay.

Today was a blessing and a challenge! We ended the week seeing over 1400 patients and handing out 1000 pairs of glasses. God moved like crazy in the clinic! The last patient of the day yesterday was a super-sick 10-month-old boy. He came in for a “cough”, but the triage nurse, Jenna, quickly realized he was much sicker than this. We quickly started him on a nebulizer (that a friend of a friend from Children’s Cup HAPPENED to bring to us the day before) and soon realized he stopped breathing every couple of seconds. I quickly realized this baby needed more than we could offer, and we began the process of getting him to the closest hospital. With his mother in tow, Micah and I, along with Pastor Darryl, his family, and local pastor Selby, went to the local clinic. The baby got much worse after this visit, and I realized he couldn’t stay home that night. We decided to take the baby to the next town over to try and get him admitted. Though none of us spoke great Siswati, we somehow communicated with Mom the entire way, eventually ending up in the town of Carolina. There we met a great older doctor who was a God-send … he agreed with our assessment of the child and admitted him to the hospital. THIS is why we do this. The mother of the child had been turned away from several other clinics and doctors – coming to our clinic was her last resort. If she hadn’t come to us the mother would’ve taken the child home to die in his sleep.  YOUR contributions helped touch and save many lives this week – this is just one example of how YOU directly help save lives!

Wow!  What an amazing story!  On a lighter note, while Amanda was tending to this child, the rest of the team was being chased by children for stickers and other donated goodies.

Luckily, Blackwell had his trusty whip with him to ward keep them at bay.

 

Just kidding.  Blackwell decided to climb a barbwire fence to play with the kids and the whip.  The only thing he managed to actually whip was himself.

This will be our last post before we get home in 2 days;  however, we will check the comments tomorrow morning before heading to the airport, so post away.  It is, after all, a 3-hour bus ride.  See you in a couple days!

Fourth Clinic Day

This is what we greeted us this morning when we arrived at clinic.

That short clip does not do the performance justice, but several of us have videos of the entire thing, so you will definitely get to see it.  Jesus truly was in the building.  We continued to eclipse the patient record, seeing over 350 between medicine and dentistry, plus over 100 people got glasses.  There were several amazing stories, so I am going to turn it over to Shannon, who has a lot to say.

Hey readers!  This is Shannon here.  I thought you might like to see a glimpse of clinic through the eyes of a provider (myself and Tallon’s experience) by sharing a few of our patient stories from today. 

 

We often go into clinic with the expectation of giving to our patients, but our first two patients gave us words of wisdom.  A 74-year old “go-go” (word for grandmother) came in with common arthritic pain.  She was lively, animated, and radiated joy.  After addressing her medical needs, we asked if she knew Jesus as her savior.  She replied with a smile that she was indeed saved.  She then said “I have nothing to give to the Lord but myself.”  She gets it.  I pray we learn to be living sacrifices just like her

Our next patient was a 99-year old male in heart failure.  We gave him the medications we could offer and  prayed for comfort in his remaining days.  When we finished praying, he looked up at us and said “please don’t tire praying for our people.”  Wow!  He knows how badly his community needs HIS love.  We told him we did give out medicine, but our main purpose was to pray and share his hope.  Little did we know, his advice would prove to be needed on our next patient.

Next, a young man sat down at our station with two walking canes.  He had been in a car accident that destroyed his legs and was feeling pretty hopeless.  He had no money to pay for medical care and could not find a hospital with a specialist.  He begged us to take him back to the US for surgery.   We explained we couldn’t, but told him about Jesus’ healing power and the miracles we had experienced in clinic this week.  He said he was a believer, but we could see doubt all over his face.  He told us without money, he would have to get both legs amputated and instead would commit suicide first.  We pulled over Roy, Dee, and Pastor Daryl to join us in prayer.  Pastor Daryl poured into him about the love of Jesus and healing.  He asked what his specific complaint was and how much it bothered him.  The patient told him it was pain.  So we all placed hands on his legs and prayed the pain gone.  After two attempts of praying, the patient was walking without his crutches and told us he was pain free.  He said he didn’t need our medicine.  Pastor Daryl then asked if we could pray for miraculous healing in his legs.  The patient was very self-conscious about showing his legs, but agreed for us to take him to a private room and pray.  We took him to the back room and there really are no words to describe how deformed his legs are.  Bones were sticking out of places that they should not.  Bone had been taken from his hip and placed in his legs.  There were literally indentations in his leg from missing bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments.  As we began to pray, the patient slowly began to open up.  Pastor Daryl then asked if he believed that he could be healed and the patient said yes.  So we all placed hands on him and prayed the most fervent pray for healing.  I could feel it in my soul that we were going to open our eyes and his legs were going to be restored.  As tears were falling down my face I could feel the shoulders of our patient heaving and feel his tears falling too.  I could literally feel his burden lifting off his shoulders.  We stopped praying and Pastor Daryl asked if anyone had a word to share of what could be hindering his healing.  The patient prayed in his own words and declared healing.  We then prayed again.  I was emotionally exhausted at this point.  My brain wanted to shut down when we began to pray again, but then, I heard a voice in my head from a sweet 99-year old patient who had not too long ago told me that he hoped “I would not tire for praying for his people.”  I remembered that and gained heart.  I placed my hands on his shoulder and his head and prayed for all suicidal ideation to leave.  I prayed in full belief that God would give him peace, show him his value, and work in his heart.  Although his legs were not healed today, we all knew his heart was being worked on and there was mental healing.  We still believe that his legs will be a progressive miracle.  I followed the patient when he left the clinic, reminded him how much he was loved and that God had a plan and purpose for him on Earth.  He had a huge grin, one I had not seen since he walked into the clinic, and told me that “You are right; I do feel I am supposed to be here now, and I will not stop fighting until my legs are healed.”  We may not have seen the bones change, but we definitely saw the beginnings of a heart change

After being on an emotional roller coaster with the above patient, we were excited to have a sweet 23-year old female arrive at our station with reflux symptoms.  We figured this would be an easy.  Wrong.  After soliciting info from her, we found out she was having unprotected sex with her boyfriend.   She agreed to an HIV test and it ended up being positive.  Once again, tears streamed down our faces.   We told her the news and found an interpreter who gave excellent patient counseling.  We once again shared how big God’s love is and he loved her the same amount now that she was HIV+ as he did before her diagnosis.  Before this patient left, I wrote on a sheet of paper Romans 8:28 and “you are loved and beautiful.”  We gave it to her asked her to read it on her toughest days to remember TRUTH! 

We saw quite a few patients after our hard ones.  We were happy to wrap up our patients with a 13-year old female who ended up being very healthy.  We counseled her on STDs, HIV, and making the choice to love her God and not boys until the time was right.  We made her promise she would always remember Jesus is the pursuer of her heart and not to let any boy take that spot.  We prayed a strong prayer of protection, wisdom, and guidance over her.  It was nice to leave on a note of hope.

As I was packing up my items for the day, I had the pleasure to pray with another team member’s patient.  He wanted to hear who Jesus was.  He was told all about Jesus, his time on Earth, his pursuit of our hearts, and our forever relationship with him.  We explained this was a life decision and not fleeting.  We told the patient we could pray for him to receive Jesus today or he could think more about his choice and pray at any time because God was always listening.  He received Jesus there and declared it with his own mouth.  I later saw him walking down the street as our bus pulled out of clinic.  He was definitely not initially as accepting of hearing the Gospel as some of my other patients,  but I could see an image of him beaming with God’s love and carrying it to his community as he waved to us as we pulled off.   He lifts up the least!

Although I hand out medicines as a provider and use my stethoscope over and over, there is NO comparison to the joy of the experience of others coming to know how long, how deep, and how wide our Father’s love is for us.   I pray we never tire of loving and sharing the news to “his people.