Aug. 14th, 2011

We have started a NICU. A 32-weeker, and three 30-weekers (one set of twins). We lost two preemies in the last few weeks I have been here, but these four kids are going strong so far. We just have to go day by day and tell the nurses to pray every time they give a feed that the baby’s stomach will tolerate it.  One of the long term missionary doctors, Dr. Gayle, is back from furlough so that has been nice for everyone, especially Dr. Briggs who has had the lead role around here for several months now.  The pediatric ward has continued to stay pretty full this last week, and yesterday was a particularly bad day.  A few of the kids have come in having received malaria treatment elsewhere, but it just wasn’t quite long enough so they get anemic and come to us.  It still surprises me how many of the patients have gone to several other places or tried all different types of treatments before showing up here.  It’s astonishing how many people do not have access to decent health care in this country and continent.

I watched two of the most disgusting surgeries yet: drainage of an abscess in a thigh and drainage of an abdominal abscess. I won’t get into the lovely details for you all, but it was sure a smelly, puss-filled, nasty task for the surgeon.  Most things here are a good ten times bigger or worse than anything ever see back in the states.  People don’t have money to spend on healthcare so they just wait until they can’t function any longer.  I have seen several leg fractures (open and closed) that didn’t seek treatment for months so there isn’t a whole lot we can do for them, and infections that have gone untreated so long that there is no way to save their foot or leg.

Last week Tsiko church had prayer meetings every morning from 5 to 6am.  A few of us would meet at 4:30 and take the 20-minute walk there.  It was a time of singing, prayer, and a short message.  Usually someone would translate into English.  There were about 75 people every morning.  It was really neat to be surrounded by people fervently and passionately praying around me in some remote little Togo village.  The pastors and church leaders are on fire for the Lord, the people have such a strong faith in God, and He is sure being glorified here!  The other day Samuel asked a couple of us what was the biggest thing that has impacted us so far.  I thought about it for a few minutes, and decided that the strength of a lot of the Togolese Christian’s faith is what has been most significant to me.  Most of these people do not have an easy life: There is not a lot of money to go around, many people don’t have enough food, they work hard to make it by another day, and there is so much sickness and death. There are always some pretty significant prayer requests.  Family members of patients in the hospital pray fervently, and somehow a lot of them manage to praise God despite their world falling down around them.  A lot of times the response of the parents when a child dies is that it was God’s will, it is what He wanted, and now the child is with Him.  I have had the opportunity to meet some incredible pastors who are on fire for the Lord.  There are some medical and evangelical staff members that never seem to get weary of sharing the Gospel.  The Togolese don’t have much, but they give glory to God for everything that they do have. On the other hand, there are still so many people in Togo that are not Christian and have not even had the opportunity to hear the Gospel before.  There is also a lot of Muslim and still a lot of fetishism and animism.  But it is evident that God is at work in so many different ways here! I have met some amazing people who have mission-centered hearts.  Although I have been made much more aware of how much evil is in this world through their experiences as missionaries, it has been quite an inspiration to learn their testimonies and hear some of their stories and adventures.