I received this beautiful story from my daughter-in-law, Suzanne. For those of you who might not know our son John - He, Suzanne, and their children Sarah Joy, Rebekah and Christopher serve the Lord with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church in Kara, Togo, West Africa. Suzanne, a registered nurse, is now a home schooling Mom. She also does medical work in a children's orphanage along with teams which come out from the United States to work with them on short term missions.They are moving in January to Benin, a neighboring country, to begin mission work in an area without any Baptist missionaries. After receiving this story, I asked for permission to print it on the inspirational part of my web site to share with all of you. After reading this story, I have one particular scripture which comes to mind.
Philippians 4:13
13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
God Bless You,
Martha
Here is the story, told by Suzanne
Have I got a tale for you... Life as a missionary is certainly not dull.Late last night I got a call from a missionary here in Kara who was afraid that she might be going into labor. It sounded like she was a little early, but not too bad and wasn't having too hard of labor. We talked awhile and decided that she would call me back if it got worse. I waited up for a while and then fell asleep. The next thing I knew our night watchman was knocking on the window saying there was a white man at the gate needing us. I went to the door to find my friend Mike (who in America was an EMT among many other things) and who is a very competent medical person. He had gotten lost and couldn't find the house of the missionaries, but said she was in active labor and had tried to call me (apparently I slept through it). So we asked Mark to come lead us to his wife since we couldn't find his new house. Of course, here soldiers stop you and wanted to hassle Mark because we were out after curfew and poor Mark was about hysterical because his wife was going to have the baby alone and here the soldiers won't let us through.
They finally let us through and we went to their house to find a very calm Nicole lying on the couch. Unfortunately, when we asked more questions we found out that it was much more serious than we thought. She was only 34 weeks pregnant, maybe less, and had gained less than 10 lbs in the entire pregnancy. In the USA she would have had that baby at hospital with NICU. We checked her and she was only slightly dilated, but was in labor. Fortunately, Mike had standing orders from a doctor in the USA based on this exact scenario and he had all the meds and even a delivery kit with him. So we started the IV and began pushing drugs to stop labor and to help develop the baby's lungs. Labor seemed to stop and about 3 am they sent me home to sleep.
I came back early the next morning and did another exam. This is where we began to resemble the "Ron Brother's Baby Delivery Service"-my family's version of the three stooges. We didn't have a speculum so I had to do my exam based entirely on what I felt (at this point we had a plane coming to Kara within 2 hrs and a plane like an intensive care unit meeting them in Lome within 12 hrs to get them to Paris to the ICU). When I checked her, I panicked-she had effaced so much that I thought I could feel the top of the baby's head. Acting calm in front of Nicole I grabbed Mike and drug him out in the hall and we had the first of many conferences. It appeared we were going to deliver that baby right there in her bedroom without the equipment we needed to help that baby survive. We sent the other missionaries in every direction hunting a speculum (they had to swear to bring it back to the hospital or have the police come get them), hot water bottles, etc. We gave her more IV meds to stop labor and prayed and prayed and prayed.
Those who helped us pack know what an action packer is. We turned an action packer into an incubator and were trying to connect oxygen to it for the baby. Mike even had the tools to intubate the baby (not even all emergency rooms have the pediatric sizes, but he had it with him here in Africa) so we could breathe for it, even though we didn't have a respirator we could bag him manually so that he could make it to the intensive care in Paris. It was a madhouse. Finally the missionaries managed to confiscate a speculum for us and we were able to examine her better and found out her cervix was not as dilated as we thought so she could make the flight to Lome in Randy's Cessna.
We were trying to load her and her IV into the truck to get her to the airport when the most humorous moment of the day occurred. Nicole suddenly panicked because her husand had forgotten to bring the baby's clothes she had picked out to bring it home in, so she drags out to the clothes line and starts getting clothes off the line - IV and all - as we all try chasing her back to the car. Her husband kept saying, "We can get clothes in Paris!!!" but she had to have those particular clothes. We got her to lie down by promising to get them and put them in the bag to carry. It was quite a night and a day, but the good news is that the labor did stop and she has been able to get to Lome where she will be medivacuated out in a plane that is a flying intensive care unit. Keep praying for the Kennells as they go to Paris tonight and pray for their soon to be born daughter Michael.
In spite of the seriousness of the whole situation, it was not without it's moments of humor like....
...when I nonchalantly dragged Mike into the hall and told him to examine her because I thought I could feel the baby's head and he agreed but then informed me he had never done an exam before and didn't have a clue what to feel for and then we nonchalantly walked back into the room. We were kind of like the duck paddling like mad underneath to stay afloat.
....when their 21 month old woke up and kept coming in trying to kiss the IV to make the owie better and informing us that the baby was in mommy's belly.
....when the other missionaries kept trying to find a speculum to beg, borrow or steal and none of us knew the french word for it(how do you mime that one),
.....when everyone that came in offered to boil water
The life of a missionary is many things, but never dull......
God bless you!
Suzanne