"Healing in His Wings"

Malachi 4:2 says:  "But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth."This week the pastor stayed in BYT with me while BletJaw was gone.  He speaks Karen, Thai, and enough English to help me!  I am so thankful.  It is providential because so many people were in desperate need of medical help!!I will mention just a few:First of all a man from LaGlah brought us his small boy who had been sick for a week.  Just the night before he had cried all night with a high fever. I checked him over and decided that he needed to go to the hospital right away.  They live to the east side of the mountain and needed to go to Meta hospital.  I missed BletJaw because I really did not want to drive all that way on the terrible roads, but necessity demanded it.  One section is especially tricky.  It does not even look like a road, only a mountainside with a rock slide. Another place requires 4 wheel drive low to get through.  The trip took 4 hours one way. The boy was admitted. We spent the night and came back the next day.  When we returned we found that patients had come from other villages the evening before and were waiting for us. 

The 10 year old girl in the back is PawNeePah.  She is from MeDeLeeGwee village, 2 hours walk from BYT.  When she first arrived her temperature was 104 degrees and she could barely walk.  The right side of her face was swollen twice its size.  I discovered that her ear, jaw and throat was severely infected.  The Mother told me that she had not eaten or drunk anything for 5 days.  She was in such extreme pain that she could not even open her mouth for me to examine her.  We prayed earnestly for her.After 2 days of prayer, strong antibiotics, IV fluids, charcoal poultices and forced fluids, I was able to look at her throat.  The right tonsil showed the nastiest, most ugly infection I have ever seen!  Now I was able to get her to drink ORS, yogurt milk, and mushroom soup.  Her strength built up rapidly.  On the morning of the the 4rth day I was able to send her home.The baby pictured here is her brother, SoChi.  He is a small 9 month old baby with pneumonia.  His lungs sounded like a freight train full of heavy cargo and pulling straight up a mountain.  You could not get lungs to sound worse than that! They could even collapse. Oh how we prayed for him! I gave him Sabumol and several breathing treatments. In only 3 days his lungs were almost clear and I was able to send him home!This week SoRaChi came to see me with 2 other small boys from the school next door.  He walked right up to me and promptly proceeded to take off all his clothes.  There he stood before me looking up with pleading eyes, his skin covered with sores from head to toe. I have treated this boy numerous times before.  Every time he gets bathed regularly and uses the fungus ointment he gets well, but at home he has no bath.  He only plays amongst the pigs, chickens and cattle until his skin becomes dangerously infected.  His sister DIED of this same problem 4 years ago.I am determined to get him well.  I take him under my wing and become a Mother to him.  Everyday I call him from school, pray with him, feed him nourishing food and give him a warm bath with lots of soap.  Then I clean his skin with a mild solution of distilled vinegar before using the clotri/beta ointment for fungus.  I wash his clothes with chlorox and hang them in the sun.  In just 4 days he is amazingly better. 

In just 5 days he is almost completely well.  But alas!  Now there is school break for one week and he will go home!  We went to MeDeLeeGwee and visited his parents, asking them if they would consider sending him to Sunshine Orchard where he could be in school and stay clean and well.  They were willing to do that, but told us to ask him what he wanted to do.  Of course a 6 year old only wants to go home because that is all he knows. We gave them bar soap, laundry soap and ointment.  I cannot wait to see him when he gets back to school.  I want to keep him in my home with me.  Maybe in a little while he will love me and trust me enough to live with me. Please pray for him that he may win this fight against dirt!

Another man from GeGhah village came this week with COPD, (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease).  He walked all the way from LaGlah village.  His skin was pale, his lips blue and he was so short of breath that he could barely whisper.  I quickly gave him puffs from a ventalin inhaler along with other bronchodialators.  He also had an enlarged liver, twice the normal size which was very painful to palpate. His condition needed hospitalization.  I was ready to take him but he had nobody to go to the hospital with him.  The pastor told him that he would go to LaGlah and get his son, so that by morning we could take him to MeDooGlow.  We prayed with this man and he went home.  When the son reached him the next morning, he refused to go!  Apparently the inhaler had helped temporarily and because he felt a little better he did not want to go.  This happens a lot.  I will continue to pray for him.  I am sure I will see him again.

Pewah, one of our beloved neighbors 62 years old, was very sick with sinusitis this week.  She did not come and see me for several days.  By then she had a fever and a splitting headache along with cough, congestion and fever.  She had not eaten or drunk much water either.   I gave her IV fluids for 2 days, and encouraged her to breath steam and drink more water.  We put hot moist packs to her sinuses and prayed with her.  In 2 days she was well and eating again.  She is very happy and thankful for the treatments.

I feel very inadequate each day and pray for God's wisdom in treating the sick and all that I do.  I am only an old nurse with ER experience.  I do not have the knowledge of a physician, but I know I am the very best one for these people.  Why? Because I am the ONLY one here to do it! Some people could reason that these patients would have healed up that fast anyway, but I don't believe that for a second.  I know God has miraculously healed them in answer to prayer.  He comes again and again with "Healing in His wings."Oh, Lord, You are everything to me!  My heart overflows with gratitude to You!