A special case

In the past, when I've taken those spiritual gift inventories, the gifts of giving and compassion were pretty much in the negatives. I know it's terrible for a missionary to admit that, but it's true. My very common response is "I can't help you in a material sense but I can pray for you". I realize that many of you are thinking that verse in James right now, but you have to realize just how many requests we get, it's literally impossible to meet all of those needs that people seem to have. But sometimes there are those rare cases where God seriously breaks my heart for certain people and he lays the tracks to do something in their lives by orchestrating events and enabling us to help them.

On Thursday, we were with the team on an island doing ministry in a fishing village, including the school that's there. As I was trying out my Luganda with some of the older kids, one of them said that I needed to see their friend who had a hurt arm. I thought... oh great, your usual scabies, worms, infected cut, etc... Then this girl named Mariam was before me and her arm was super swollen and I looked closer and you could see the bone protruding from the skin and throughout the arm there were other old wounds. When I asked her how long it's been like that, she told me a year... I had to check my Luganda a minute to be sure I really got what she said. But after verifying things, she had in fact had that for about a year and she said she was in pain. She was super quiet, and I said I could pray for her to which her friends informed me that she was Muslim and I told them that God loves her too. So after praying for her and making a phone call realizing just how serious it was, it was decided we would bring her to Jinja to have surgery in order to keep her from dying from the infection. The one issue was getting the permission from her parents. At first her dad was ok with the plan but then he said he was afraid her arm would be cut off. We found out that he had spent about $500 at witch doctors to try and fix her... I couldn't believe that! It also turns out that the girls parents are divorced and she lives with her dad but her dad is married to a new wife and the girl doesn't even sleep in the same house as them. I just couldn't believe that someone could have that little care for someone who is his own flesh and blood! We finally had to get the LC1 (local leader) to convince him to have her come with us and tell him that she could die and this may be his last chance for her to get help.

After the doctor saw her and the x-rays and the tests. We found out that she has osteomyolitis (sp?) where her bone is infected and the infection is basically bursting the bone and making it come out the skin. The infection has no place to drain so it just breaks the bone. She will have to have the first surgery which will provide a way for the infection to get out but then other surgeries to hopefully repair the damage and save her arm. We also found that there's a good chance that she has sicle cell anemia as her blood count is at 7 which is really low.

This poor girl is in so much pain, and she's only 11! I can't help but think that God brought her into our path not to just get healed physically but that He's got something even more in store for her, her family, and even that village through this whole thing. It's just cool because it' all about Him because of the timing, circumstances, and you can just see His hand all over it. Please just pray for Mariam, that not only would God guide the hands of the surgeon but that He would also do a huge work in helping her to know that she has a heavenly Father who loves her so much and knows her pain and use this to do an awesome work in that little village.