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October 2000
Dear Friends,
This will be a rather long letter, as we have much to share.
We probably won’t get another letter out before Christmas.
Bear with us, rejoice with us, and pray with us!
The resilience of the human body and spirit is truly amazing.
We have witnessed it firsthand and can only praise God for His
marvelous creation. On Saturday, September 23, our whole family
went to visit a friend’s community-based orphan care project
south of Lilongwe. Fletcher Matandika, a Presbyterian pastor’s
son, is doing a wonderful job of caring for about 200 orphans
with volunteer help, few resources, a lot of prayer, and a conviction
of God’s call to this ministry in his village. At his small
day-care center we were made aware of a severely malnourished
little girl. With some questioning, we learned that she was being
cared for by a great aunt. Her mother was dead and her father
had moved to another part of the country. She was two-and-a-half
years old but was about the size of a six-month-old baby. We returned
home and prayed for little Alifa all weekend. What could be done?
She was surely weeks, perhaps only days away from death.
Monday morning we reported her situation to the district social
welfare office. They realized that she needed to be hospitalized
with 24-hour guardian care, but there was no guardian willing
or able to provide such care. They had a list of possible foster
families, but none were willing to take a child in such a precarious
condition. What could be done? Frank looked at me and quietly
asked, "Are you ready for this?" My response was, "Ready
or not, it looks like we’re her only option."
So, on Monday night, September 25, Alifa came to live at our
house. The first order of business on Tuesday morning was a doctor’s
visit. She weighed 12.5 pounds, was listless, anemic and just
a pitiful little bit of humanity. The doctor was not very encouraging,
saying she had perhaps a 50 percent chance to live, but told us
clearly what we had to do to give her that chance. He inserted
a nasogastric tube for round-the-clock feeding and wrapped her
little hands in gauze so she wouldn’t pull it out. The next
few days were hard—feeding her a rich soya porridge every
three hours, night and day, and being on an emotional roller coaster
about her chances at life and her future. But the spark of life
in her grew slowly brighter and stronger. On Friday night, September
29, she reached for a piece of bacon off my plate and began eating
it! By the following Friday she was eating so well by herself
that we were able to take the tube out. That spark of life is
now blazing with smiles and laughter and temper and willfulness!
She is stunted in all areas of growth and development, but is
unlikely to be immune deficient (HIV/AIDS) as she would not have
survived to this point. And the Lord has given us a wonderful
verse, Isaiah 51:3, which we are claiming for her: "For the
Lord will comfort Alifa (Zion); he will comfort all her waste
places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like
the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the voice of song." Aren’t those beautiful
and powerful words of comfort and promise? Pray that they will
become a reality in her life. And pray with us as we seek to determine
what is best for her future.
Another cause for thanksgiving and celebration is the acquisition
of a 15-seat van in August. We were made aware of a very good
deal on a new one in South Africa and the Louisville office backed
us with a quick loan, which has now been completely paid off by
the generosity of God’s people! The van has already proved
a wonderful blessing to a variety of people—a work group
from Illinois, a Presbytery partnership group from Oklahoma, and
most recently it was used to transfer 20 patients to our mission
hospital in the central region for treatment by visiting Presbyterian
doctors from the U.S. Thanks so much to all who gave to make this
resource available to the ministry of the church here!
Frank is just back from a two-week trip to Ethiopia. It was a
particularly distressing time, as he heard stories of inter-clan
revenge conflict among the Nuer people in western Ethiopia. Church
officials from Western Gambella Bethel Presbytery told how the
Nuers from Sudan cross the Baro River each year to burn Nuer villages
in Ethiopia, and run off, steal, or slaughter their cattle. Some
people are killed and many are displaced each year. These are
armed raids—and incredibly destructive to lives and livelihoods.
The really sad thing is that the government has been preoccupied
with its conflict with Eritrea and has ignored this ongoing one
in the west. These people are essentially abandoned, left unprotected
and without aid. They are now looking to the church for help.
What can the Church do? We can pray. Please pray for protection
for the Ethiopian Nuer people from these annual raids. Please
pray that the countries that flood this region with arms for their
own financial gain will understand the devastating consequences
of their greed and stop the sales. (Naive? Perhaps, but God is
in the business of changing hearts.) And pray that the church
in Ethiopia (The Ethiopian Evangelical Church, Mekane Yesus) would
extend grace and help across tribal and cultural boundaries to
meet the needs of the Nuer.
The privilege and power of prayer is ours, because of Christ.
We can boldly approach the throne of Grace on behalf of individuals,
situations and nations. Let us pray!
With love in Christ,
Nancy, Frank, Nathan, Moses, Jessica, Katie, Andrew ... and Alifa
The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 40
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