Babies and School Kids

It's been sort of an up and down week. To start things off, last Sunday one of the national preachers approached me before afternoon church and told me that his sister and her husband had walked several hours to bring their sick baby for me to look at. I immediately went to his house to see it and found a quite lethargic 11-month-old, working very hard to breathe and burning up with fever. We went straight up to the clinic and I gave him a penicillin shot, a liquid antibiotic, and a bronchodilator (to ease his breathing). The parents brought him back every morning throughout the week for another penicillin shot. By the end of the week, his breathing was much easier and he seemed much better. But this morning (Monday), I got word that he had died during the night. It's the first baby I have lost since coming here, so that's a real blow, besides the fact that he really seemed to be better the last time that I saw him. In addition, I don't think either of his parents are saved.

On Thursday morning, a young Christian couple from church brought their 6-month old baby to the clinic. She also was having a hard time breathing and had actually stopped breathing several times during the night and once right there in the clinic. I gave her an antibiotic shot as well, and then Brother Randy was able to drive them a few hours to the nearest airstrip where they were able to fly to a government hospital. (We offered to take the other baby as well, but the parents declined.) As of yesterday, that baby is still alive and improving. Please pray for the continued healing of Joanna along with her parents Tu and Wari as well as for the comfort of Gabriel's family in his loss.

The school side of things is bringing its share of heartache as well. As I may have mentioned, age does not correlate with grade here, so several of our 4^{th graders are 18 or older. Due to some conduct issues, we did not reenroll some of last year's 3rd graders and they left home to go to a government school (about 6 hours away). The government school is on break this week and some of those kids have come back with rosy tales. Because of the quality of our education, the kids that had finished 3rd grade in our school were accepted into 6th grade in the community school and are finding the work much easier. This is tempting two of the 4th grade boys to leave our school and join them. I think this is an unwise decision from an academic standpoint (as they are getting a better education here and will be farther ahead the longer they stay with us), but I am more concerned from a spiritual standpoint. As I spoke with one of the boys today, I was encouraging him to pray and seek God's will and not just follow his own desires. Every time I brought that up, he looked anywhere but at me. I really fear for their walk with the Lord if they put their own plans over God's, not to mention that they will be far away from a Bible preaching church and the accountability of pastor, parents, and godly authorities. The boys have to make their decision this week as they would need to be at the government school by Monday. Please pray that they will seek and follow God's leading.}