12-14-07

12-14-07

Fri

09:28

The day we last visited Tuwani, we visited some children who go to the school. A family that we visited there had a little girl named Esther. She is 2 or 3 years old and she wouldn’t eat because she was suffering from malnutrition (she looks younger than 2 years old, because she isn’t getting the nutrition that she needs to grow) (not growing and not eating are signs of malnutrition). While we were at her house, they told us that she needed an appetizer (it is strange…that the word we use for a pre-meal snack is the word they use for a medicine that will cause a little girl to eat so she doesn’t starve to death). Eva Joy and Caleb brought Esther to the hospital, and Eva has been staying with her for much of the day for the past days. The hospital is cramped, not well organized, dirty, and ill equipped. There are IVs in children’s veins in their heads, cots sometimes must fit 2 or 3 children each, a trail of blood has shown where someone has been walking, and if you would like the doctor to use gloves, you need to bring them yourself. We are hopeful that Esther will be able to leave the hospital today, because she is doing better, and the swelling of her face has gone down (swelling is another sign of malnutrition).

In the meantime, Isabella’s little girl just was admitted to the hospital, because she has meningitis (Isabella is the woman who’s son died last month)

Prayer is more effective than the hospital out here… I realize that, in America, it is only my lack of faith and misplaced faith that makes me turn to a doctor or medicine before God.