In Septemeber 2008, I traveled 6000 miles to Haiti's Kenscoff mountains. My mission: to care for some of the orphaned and abandoned, the sick, malnourished and premature infants of this beautiful but beleagured Caribbean nation.





Sunday 3 July 2011

Sensing His Nearness

When I heard that two generators were out at the main house this morning, I groaned inwardly. The last time this happened on my watch, I had one baby on high flow oxygen, turning blue every time the power went out, and her oxygen concentrator cut off, and another in an incubator.... The memory tailed off. Today's outage would not be life or death to anyone. I'd made sure of that.
This afternoon, our sickest baby is 9 month old Osmaika. She caught an intestinal infection two weeks ago, and has not recovered in the same way that our other babies have. This little girl was born prematurely and she came to us in December, at the age of two months, after contracting cholera and being abandoned by her birth mother.

Osmaika is unable to tolerate anything orally. She is also unable to absorb anything but pre-digested proteins and fats, so she is being drip fed oral rehydration solution, vitamins, medicines, and a special medical formula, via a feeding pump. She is healing, slowly. She is fortunate to have access to a combination of treatments from the developed and developing worlds. I have integrated medical and nutritional approaches for treating severe or prolonged gastroenteritis and the method works very well for our most fragile babies.

The inverter has powered Osmaika's feeding pump all morning, and now, EDH (government electricity) is on. A second pump is charging, and if our power fails completely and both pump batteries discharge, we will turn to a no-technology feeding option. In a country where you cannot depend on a constant source of power, it is important to have a plan B and a plan C.

I am very grateful that we have everything we need for Osmaika, especially, the few cans of Pregestimil formula and the feeding pump that make it possible to nourish her just now. Apparently, God knew in advance that Osmaika would need these things. In this case, his provision came in advance of my prayer and because of that, I sense his nearness, his sovereignty, and his spirit, moving in Osmaika's life.

1 comment:

Ithappenstobehaiti said...

Praying for you all at GLA tonight. I am sure it will be a tough one. Praying that you continue to see God;s handiwork.