A second post from Doro Conference

The Mabaan church leaders' conference ended joyfully. The leaders departed yesterday after many visits and discussions, and plans for future gatherings.

Then yesterday afternoon, I developed a full-blown right eye infection. I started using tetra eye ointment. Many patients came for treatment, and I was able to see well enough to work through the afternoon. Mike and Rod helped with the training school, which is up to ring beam level. Pastor John Chitumbo has done very well and God granted him relief from any gout until yesterday, after the conference. For Mabaans to witness an African man of God, speaking powerfully and with passion about the love of Christ, was far more effective than anything we others could have spoken.

My last patient was a Mabaan pastor, estranged from his wife. They both came at my request and we struggled until the sun went down, through their tragic story. Finally, we agreed to meet this morning to continue. We were a tired group as we sat around the table for another fine Barb meal. Then we sang and prayed, which we do each evening. We have shared such wonderful fellowship.

There was a sudden commotion outside. The sound of running feet one way, then back the other way. We said ‘amen’, and headed for the door. It was pitch black outside. The guard Joseph had gone for his ‘bwam’, and was shouting “snake!” And so it was.

Having roused Vicki’s cat, it reared up and hissed. Truly a great snake, the largest cobra I have encountered. Seven feel long. As big around as my forearm (OK, no comments from Timothy and Stephen!!). The torch light was poor, and my right eye was a blur by now. I kept respectful distance, but watched with chagrin as it took a few blows, then disappeared under the moldering grass which used to be our fence before heavy wind and rains destroyed it. Now the new barb wire fence was irritating the beast, but it dove under the grass and the night was suddenly quiet, and still. We all checked underfoot! The men clobbered the dry grass. Carefully I raked it bit by bit, pulling it away from the fence. Nothing. We were jumpy. We moved from near Vicki’s tukul toward the pit latrine, along the fence, checking the grass. John Maruti warily scanned outside the fence looking for any sign. There was none. I kept pulling grass with the rake, now on the other side of the latrine. I could see nothing, in the poor light and with a really nasty conjunctivitis now galloping along. Suddenly, a shout! I jumped back. There was the snake writhing in anger, now exposed! A few minutes of well-aimed blows, and it was dead. We took the obligatory photos, dealt with two drunk soldiers who appeared out of the darkness and wanted to dissect it immediately in fear of some witchcraft, and finally plopped it in a covered bucket for the night.

The drunk soldiers were 4 men, with a young wife whose 3-day old baby was gasping, teetering on the far edge of life. There was no refusing them, of course. They were ushered out to the guard hut, we hung an IV scalp vein with some difficulty, administered IV gentamicin, and prayed. They calmed down (which was answer to my prayer). We asked the loving Creator for a miracle, for this little girl near death from neonatal sepsis. We had no IV penicillin. She needed bag and mask briefly but as the acidosis improved she breathed on her own, and we divided the night into shifts. I went back to the canvas tent I share with Rod Greene, after the nurses cleaned my swollen and painful right eye. The left eye was now painful as well, so I lay awake and at intervals put the only eye drops we could find – expired chloramphenicol – into both eyes.

Then across the dark compound came the voice of one of the nurses, Amy, calling from the little thatch hut. The child was gasping again. The unnamed little girl – they told us they wait three weeks for naming, to see if the child will live – had vomited and aspirated. We fought for more than 2 long hours, but at last she died. In broken English one young soldier said to me, “The Lord gives, the Lord takes.” And they went with the tiny body out into the night, mother weeping behind. It was a sad moment, reminder of so many night-time vigils over the years at Luampa Hospital in Zambia, battling for life when death hovered so near. For one of the nurses, it was the first baby ever to die ‘on her watch’, and the acuteness of the pain was a poignant reminder of the deep, deep love of Jesus for each little one who suffers in such dark and distant places of the world.

God is good. This morning we found a new bottle of chloramphenicol eye drops, and the pain and swelling are subsiding. As I was unable to meet with the pastor and his wife, Rod and Pastor Mike rode off to Boing and have returned with encouragement and hope. After talking together, the couple prayed and committed to work toward reconciliation for the sake of their marriage, their seven children, and for the sake of their commitment to Christ.

Thank you for praying. In Christ, Rob