Whooping Cough Outbreak Update

One of the ladies from the village with her baby on her hip! This little guy is just too cute!

     Toward the end of August we traveled up to our home village for our last visit to make sure we were "leaving well" for furlough, making sure that with all our relationships with the people that they understood why we were going to be gone so long and that we are coming back. Also we had to finish closing up our house to make sure the termites don't eat it while we are away. Once we arrived, we stayed with one of our close friends in their home, since our house was almost 90% closed up at that point (we lacked a few things to finish closing it up when we arrived). We were blown away when the family told us that there had been several infant deaths in the weeks before we had arrived. They used a term for the illness that we didn't really understand or recognize, so we were a little confused initially about what was happening. Their little 3-month-old daughter (our little goddaughter), Azalea, also had this illness. I was thrown off because she would be totally fine, her weight and color were good, and she was cooing and smiling away the majority of the time we were there. But out of the blue, every hour or two she would start to cough and wouldn't be able to catch her breath, she would literally have foam coming out of her mouth, and then she would turn blue from not being able to breathe. So scary! Watching her parents trying to figure out what to do was terrible. We felt just as helpless as they did.
        We both had a hunch just from the symptoms that it was whooping cough, but we hadn't ever seen or heard of an outbreak, so we had to do research and talk with lots of medical personnel outside the village to confirm that it is indeed whooping cough.
​    It has been a stressful, heartbreaking time. We've spent the last two+ months studying up on Whooping Cough and treatment options & having to do a lot of waiting which has probably been the hardest part. It's frustrating to feel like there's nothing we or anyone else can do. One of our supporting church in the States offered to send medical supplies for the outbreak, so we spent the last couple of weeks waiting for those supplies to arrive, trying to figure out how to get them to the village, since we are about to leave for our Stateside furlough. 

We were in the village when Azalea was born. This picture was taken of the family just 3 days after her birth.

      We've experienced a lot of frustration, both from learning that there is no cure for the illness and finding that the treatment options that are available are so expensive or complicated that there's just no realistic option to get them to our village, and even those are not cures!! There's also the struggle of understanding that within the culture, if you treat a baby and they still don't make it, there's a good chance the family could see us as responsible for the death of their baby. Then there's the side of having to coordinate with the government health care representatives in the village and area who tend to see our questions and desires to help as a critic and threat to their monopoly and power over the health care on the river. There's a lot of power and money in health care, even though there's so little medical care available on the river. The pediatrician that works in the village for the government is a friend, but she has been out of the village on a long vacation since before the outbreak started and will just be getting back sometime this month (Oct). 
        The feeling of being responsible for the deaths of our friends' infants if we didn't do something quick enough was pretty heavy on my heart the first couple of weeks. After many sleepless nights and after the Lord closed all the doors we were trying to open in our search for a way to help the people, the Lord finally gave me a peace that He is in control. He is the ultimate Healer. He finally gave me a peace that it isn't our responsibility "to help" by providing medicine or a cure this time. He was calling us to walk alongside the people and weep with them over their loss. 

This couple and their family are our neighbors and close friends. There little one-year-old son, Breynard was just recovering from Whooping cough when we visited them in August. We are so thankful for his recovery!!

        You're probably asking whats happening now! Here's a quick update:
- the Lord ended up closing the door to receiving the medical supplies that we were hoping to receive from our supporting church in the States. We fought hard to try and get them here, but it was a clear "no" from the Lord. So we are left with praying and trusting Him with the situation.
- We've had a fear of calling Azalea's parents since we were afraid we would call and find that she hadn't made it. She's only 3 months old, so the odds have not been in her favor. And if we called into that situation or maybe in the middle of her funeral...what would we say? How do we hold it together ourselves?
- We ended up receiving a call from another friend from the village this past weekend and ventured to ask how Azalea was doing. This friend lives a good 30 minute+ walk from Azalea's family, but he assured us that the last he heard she was slowly recovering!! We still need to follow up and make sure that that is what is happening right now in her case, but that gave us the hope that she may make it! Praise to our awesome God and Healer!!

That's the latest! We'll know more once our pediatrician friend who works for the government health care system gets back to the village in a couple of weeks. Thanks so much for your prayers and heartfelt concern!! We have felt and see your prayers in action the last few weeks! Please keep them coming!

Visiting with some of the families after the birth of a baby! We were called in to help decide on the name of the baby. They always look for a baby name that no one has heard of before, so they wanted to hear all the names we could come up with to find one that was "new" and unused in the village.