Hey Everyone,
We want to say thank you again to all of you who continue to pray and support us. We know that without a support team in the states this job we are doing would be much more difficult. We also want to let you know that we have lost some support this term due to deaths or struggling churches and individuals, so if you know of someone who might want to join our team financially or a church looking for a new missionary, please let them know about us. If you have any questions about this or to find out more about our support needs, please feel free to email us. We don’t have the opportunity to share this stateside, hence why we share this here.
It’s been a couple of months since our last update, we apologize for that and will try to briefly fill you in. There are many reasons for this but the past couple months our internet has been horrible and not able to get into our blogspot to update you all.
There were a few weeks that were stressful at times due to medical emergencies with our Dem friends. Here is a bit about that:
Over a month ago, a lady named Desira, who lives about 2 hours hike away, gave birth but the placenta was stuck. It was going on over 9 hours, so we contacted the aviation mission community, and there happened to be a helicopter that was in the area. The helicopter stopped in our front yard, picked up Briana and myself and we flew to the village to check Desira for ourselves. We decided she and the baby (a preemie who had been lying on the cold, wet floor for 12 hours without being held or nursed!!) needed medical treatment in town. So I (J) took Desira and her father to town. We only spent 1 night in town, but she got the care she needed and we returned to have Briana and Kendra (one of our coworkers) monitor her and baby closely all week. We are happy to report that her and baby are doing well.
A couple days after that, a young man named Deminut, cut his foot very badly with an axe and lost a lot of blood. The people wanted us to fly him to town, but we explained that the plane isn’t at our disposal and we didn’t think it was necessary. We helped in all the ways we could and he is doing well.
A week or so after that, another man, named Sem, basically split his foot in half, length wise with an axe, but surprisingly there wasn’t a lot of blood!? There also happened to be a government run airplane coming the next morning, so we had him go to town to get it looked at by a doctor. He is doing well.
Then the next day people came from that same village as Desira (the other lady with the retained placenta), about 2 hours away, saying a lady named Wanise had been in labor for 4 days, and still no baby. Briana had actually just seen and checked her the week before and we thought she was maybe pregnant with twins because her belly was BIG. We contacted a mid-wife in town, relaying all the info we had and tried to get as much advice as we could, since where the lady lived there was no internet for Bri to talk to the mid-wife once they got there.
Bri and Kendra decided to hike there around 2 pm, check her progress, and most likely tell them they needed to carry Wanise to the airstrip for a med evac the next morning. The ladies were planning on hiking back the same evening, but it wouldn’t stop raining and the lady needed to be monitored. Thankfully we had a satellite phone they could call the mid-wife and ask a few questions, but the connection and weather was so horrible that they could barely hear each other.
The ladies ended up spending the night in the hut and their plan was to leave that village around 4:30 am (Bri & Kendra along with men carrying the pregnant lady on a stretcher) so that they could arrive early in the morning for a med evac. flight. The ladies witnessed first-hand the dark animism that our Dem friends are enslaved to. Everything is caused by or influenced by the spirit world so throughout the night people inside the hut were yelling at the spirits and trying to chase them away. One of the things they did was kill a pig outside, another thing was sacrificing chickens inside the hut to appease the spirits, so this baby would be born. Needless to say, no one got much sleep.
While all this was going on, I was trying to arrange a flight to take Wanise and us to town. It ended up working out flawlessly as there was a doctor who was able to come in on the plane and check her progress on site. She checked her and had high hopes we could deliver the baby here, as she was able to assess the baby was indeed head down. Thankfully MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) was able to hang out for a couple hours to give her time to work. After almost 5 days of labor, Wanise gave birth to a very large baby girl and they both are doing well. Briana and Kendra learned a lot form the doctor. When the baby was born the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck also, so they learned how to deal with that, amongst other things. We are truly thankful for the mission community in town that helps us in these situations and for us to show the love of Christ through medical.
And lastly, we have had a young lady named Perisana and her new baby to care for. Perisana miscarried last year and beginning of this April gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She came to Briana 3 weeks after having a baby with complaints that seemed normal to us. After checking back in with her and still having complaints, Bri and our midwife in town were able to figure out that baby was not latching properly which had resulted in Mom stopping nursing the baby and no milk supply. When we saw the baby, it was very underweight and dehydrated. We (our coworkers and us) immediately took action. We started supplementing formula after we forced her to nurse as much as she could. We then got a breast pump from town and began trying to get the milk supply back up. The ladies have been working at it for weeks, which has been exhausting helping someone nurse and pump around the clock and cleaning all the bottles, prepping all the formula, etc. As of now, the milk has not come in enough to take care of her baby on her own, so we are just continuing to do our best and PRAY that God restores her supply for this baby. Otherwise it is going to be a LONG year for us all! Can you please pray that Perisana’s milk supply would come back and that her baby will thrive?
As you know our team in the tribe consists of 4 families and it’s great to have 4 families, especially when things like this come up to even out the load, but these medical situations all occurred during a time when there was just us and one other family. It was indeed a stressful couple weeks, but also very humbling and a privilege to see God’s PROTECTION and PROVISION through all this- with the helicopter that just happened to be close by, the days we needed flights for medical purposes there actually were planes available, to the doctor being able to come in and deliver the baby and how the mission community comes together at these times. We truly have been humbled by all that has happened and He has allowed us to be a part of. And we thank you all who were praying during all this.
On a lighter, different topic, we had language consultants fly in in March so we could do language evaluations. As mentioned before, there are 4 language evaluations to determine when we will be finished with Dem language study and before we can start translating and preparing to teach. Our co-worker, Dylan took his final language check and is officially finished with Dem language study!! I and another co-worker passed our 3rd language check. What that means, is my goal is to take my final check 4 before Christmas of this year (I’m hoping it will be a Christmas present to myself).
Please continue to pray for our Dem friends along with our team as it is just us and 1 other family in here for the next 5 months. Pray for wisdom when the next medical situation comes up as we usually have to make tough decisions on the fly while being pressured by our Dem friends. Also please pray for our co-workers who are state-side, that they would be able to be refreshed, encouraged and recharged for more times like this.:)
*Oh ya, and back in November Jared (1 of our partners) and I hiked across the valley to a neighboring tribe who have the Gospel to visit with our missionary friends. Here is a pic and a short video of me crossing the bridge at the bottom of the mountain. I would like to add it might not look that scary but it was high and sketchy. (sorry for the bad quality, I had to make the file smaller for our bad internet.)
Here is Jared after we both made it across
Your feet to the Dem... 