Ivan, Inno, and Charlie

We've said it before and it always seems so true: bringing in a new child to GSF is bitter sweet.  It is never an easy decision, but knowing a child is physically not well often urges us bring them in.  

Inno and Charles are part of a large family where the 70 year old grandmother  is the main caretaker.  Inno and Charles, both so young, are malnourished.  Our hope and aim for these two boys are to nurse them back to health, help the family and return the boys to those in the village who love them.  

Ivan'smother brought him to us because of a growth on his back.  She had never taken him to a medical doctor as she lacked the funds.  Now 2 years and 4 months old, Ivan is pulling himself up to a standing position but not yet walking.  Since being brought into the orphanage, Ivan has begun treatment for spinal tuberculosis.  His future is unclear but there is hope for a surgery to correct the growth on his back.  

Faithful God

This afternoon, as I began teaching the women’s Bible Study about a faithful God, my social worker walked up and said they needed a nurse at the school immediately.  Fortunately, Nurse Dayna was there and went quickly down to the school.  Towards the end of the Bible Study, she came to tell me that she was pretty sure that the kid had an appendicitis.   After they sent him to the hospital, we began to second guess if we should have had Nurse Dayna go to really stress that it was an emergency.  But we did not.  I told Dayna that whether we messed up or not, we serve a faithful God.  We cry out to Him for wisdom every day.

We made several phone calls to nurses at the hospital, then waited to see what would happen.  As I was writing this, Nurse Dayna came down to tell me that the hospital nurse called her back.  I wish I could say that they are doing an ultrasound and taking care of the situation.  Alas, it just doesn’t happen that way.  The doctor has put the boy on “pain management” and will do an ultrasound tomorrow.   Nurse Dayna tried to stress that the appendix may have burst and they needed to act quickly.  The nurse laughed and said the doctor didn’t think so and they only do ultrasounds on Monday and Thursday anyway!  Grateful it is now Wednesday evening, but still.  Since he is a school kid, we can’t really do much.  Even if we could, all ultrasound technicians go home at 5 pm.  We realized it is in this moment that we have to trust in our faithful God.  We can only do so much.   He calls us to be faithful.   But when we can’t do anymore,  we look to Him who is always Faithful to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep His commands (Deut. 7:9).