the latest news

I don't have an update on Addie today....status quo I guess.  Still in the ICU.

 

Today the twins left us.....they loaded them in a car and took them back to live with the neighbor/finally copped to being the grandma but noone believes her/really big liar/person.  She came in to the nursery all flat affect and grumpy and just sat there and didn't say a word.  It makes me so angry.  She does not want these babies.  The whole time the two tias on shift in the bercario huddled in the corner looking all sad.  I prayed over Carolina and then Mario, picked them each up, snuggled them, and gave them both kisses.  The grandma person didn't even want to hold the baby....the reintegration tias had to make me give her the baby.  One of our tias kept saying over and over in Portuguese, but mana Erin these are our babies, they're our babies.  They need to stay here. they are our babies.  Then she said, I'll take them to my house and keep them.  Then in the midst of the dramatic departure, the three musketeers-Dionisio, Latifo, and Lucia who had previously been asleep woke up and took in the scene.  Dionisio watched me give the babies over to the mean grandma person and all the strange reintegration team and then them start to leave with all the milk, medications, diapers, clothes, pacifiers ect we sent home with them and he started getting really angry and screaming at them.  It was really cute and sad all at the same time.  He just kept crying and crying and then Lucia and Latifo started in......there weren't too many dry eyes in the house after that!  So off they went with the reintegration team.  They went back to the zone they live in to meet with the head people in charge there and give them all the information on these babies, how to take care of them, all their appointments and consults and everything.  I'm still praying really hard that this neighbor person will give in and just bring them back to us.  She has lied so much to us, over and over.  It's a different story each and every time.  We kinda get the impression that she's probably not the grandma and is being pressured by other community members into saying this to try to get money or whatever from us.  It's really really sad, because Carolina and Mario are the ones that are going to suffer.  We're saving a spot for them on the milk program so that they can come back every 2 wks and be seen by a doctor, have appointment reminders, and get medications and milk for free.  They are due to return in 2 wks.  I pray that if they don't come back to live with us the least they will do is come be part of the milk program so we can keep tabs on them and their health!  Please continue to pray for this situation.  I'm still processing it tonight.

To know our God as comforter

The twins are still here.  Our reintegration team prepared a packet of info involving the twins, the investigations we had done, their history at the center, and the medical history and needs and brought it to the social welfare office late yesterday.  Now we are just waiting to see what happens between them and the family!  Please continue praying....for the moment they are still with us.

 

Addie got transferred last night to the baixa which is their version of the intensive care unit.  No girls are allowed to visit.  Something about how it's an intensive care and a scary place and kids are really really sick and dying and girls shouldn't see that kind of thing.  never mind that a female has to stay with the kid, no girls allowed.  I am still a girl so I was not allowed to see addie today.  but she's still on oxygen, having trouble breathing, and has a feeding tube.  At least she's getting some help and doesn't have to expend as much energy eating every 3 hrs.  The tia on the other hand is NOT allowed to sleep at all.  she must sit in a hard wooden chair next to addie's bedside and be the nurse....I mean, nurse's right hand girl.  something like that.  these first 2 wks will be the hardest not only as her body adjusts to the really powerful TB medications but as the TB medications start working on the virus.  Please pray for her.  It's been 3 weeks now to the day that she went into the hospital!  I really wanted to hold her today and pray over her and give her kisses, but I won't be able to do so again until she's out of baixa.  Pray for the tia that's with her, for strength, endurance, wisdom and empowerment to speak up on addie's behalf, and compassion for Addie! 

 

Thanks so much for covering our staff, myself, and our kids in prayer.  I know God is listening and I'm believing Him for results in His timing!  As we were singing in home group tonight I was having a little trouble with some of the lyrics about God being just, true, faithful, and all His ways being right all the time....as I kept singing and working through them I was gently reminded how we live in a fallen world with a different ruler than the God we serve.  He does not cause the pain and the suffering, the sickness, the evil, the death.  Our director tonight said it is always easy to see God's faithfulness in our lives when we look back, looking at the past.  But it is often the here and now and even more importantly, trusting His faithfulness into the future that we get hung up.  That is so true at the moment for me with these little tykes.  I know without a shadow of a doubt He is good and true and His ways are just and merciful and He is always faithful when I look over my life.  I just need to stand firm in what I know so I can trust Him now and in the future with Addie, Carolina, and Mario.  Then tonight I opened my email to find a friend had sent me some scripture verses.  One is a verse God showed me when I first started this journey on the way to Mozambique and I cling to it often.  I needed to be reminded of it tonight.

 

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has annointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty tot eh captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion-to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified."  -Isaiah 61:1-3

 

The next verses reminded me to be still in Him and to let Him fight these battles for me for He is far stronger.  In fact He has already fought these battles in the natural and supernatural and won!  We can be assured and take peace in knowing this.

 

"The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent."  -Exodus 14:14

 

And then finally, the verses reminded me of why He allows us to go through these times without just delivering us at once.  To know Him as our comforter!

 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesuss Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselvs are comforted by God."  -2 Corinthians 1:3-4

 

Thank you for all the encouragement ya'll have sent me!  I am truly blessed by all of you! 

 

 

late update on Addie...more tomorrow!

last minute update on addie...the tia with her in the hospital called tonight to tell us that Addie has gotten worse tonight.  She is having problems breathing.  They put her back on oxygen and putting a feeding tube back in her nose.  Apparently she's thrown up blood at least once tonight as well.  Don't know more details.  Will go personally to see her tomorrow!  Please pray hard for her today (which is through most of the night for us as we're 6 hrs ahead of eastern time zone!!)  It's good news if her condition really is unchanged (per my assessment on Sunday) but they are finally figuring out that they should help her.  It's not so good news if she's gotten so bad that they have HAD to do this to help her!  So Anna and I will go to the city tomorrow and hug and snuggle and give kisses and hold and pray over Addie for the short time they'll let us and then I'll teach the tia to use a bulb syringe and how to do some chest physio and help addie out!  Oh how my heart is breaking for this little tyke.

 

In twin news...they are still here at the moment...and we've gotten the ELISA results back.  They are positive as well.  These are not definitive results but they are more accurate than the rapid screen.  We won't get the other results back for almost 2 months.  We are taking them for a consult tomorrow at the HIV clinic unless anything happens before they leave at 8:30 am and in the meantime we're praying hard for their situation! 

 

oh how heavy my heart is right now!  I know He is bigger than these things.  These children are His and are in His hands.  I trust Him with them as He created them, breathed life into them, and brought them into being.  Just wish I could do more at the moment.  I'm learning in these moments it's all I can do to pray!  Thanks for joining me.

Prayer request for the new twins: Mario and Carolina!

I don't have an update on Addie today, but hopefully will tomorrow.  I'm sending the HIV nurse tomorrow to check in on her and bring things...mainly a bulb syringe and knowledge.  I'm having her teach the tia there to do chest physiotherapy where you put the kid head down on their belly and beat on their back to help break up her secretions and mobilize them (hopefully) up and out of her lungs and into a nasal or mouth passage...which is where effective bulb syringing comes in......to remove the ickyness!  I pray this will help and that's she's getting better and better each and every moment!  Please continue to pray for her.

 

Today this prayer request though is for our new twins Mario and Carolina.  If you haven't read their really sad story then scroll down to my May 12th post.  Well, I have more sad heartbreaking news that demands urgent prayers.  First a few updates since that post.  We tested them for HIV and unsuprisingly they were positive which only means that they were exposed to mom's virus.  We are waiting for the results of a better HIV test called the ELISA that was sent off to SA (we're hoping to have it back today) and the best test we can do here called a PCR which takes 2 months.  This test measures the actual viral count in the baby's blood and tells us whether they have just been exposed or whether the viruses are swimming around in their little bodies and replicating over and over.  We're treating them with a preventative antibiotic to keep them from getting random infections and watching them carefully until we get the PCR back.  In the meantime they seem healthy and are gaining weight now that they are being fed appropriately.  They really look good this week.  We had a Mozambican couple that has been waiting a year for babies and they work for us.  They really wanted to adopt these two babies.  They have visited frequently, holding them, taking pictures, cooing over them, feeding them.  This isn't going to be able to happen.  The neighbor that reportedly had been taking care of the twins because the family could not and was unable to continue doing so, who had contacted us to take the kids has been visiting and saying she's the grandmother.  When told yesterday by reintegration that the kids were going through the process of adoption since we had signed papers giving them up by the family, she kept quiet.  Then she went to the social welfare office and claimed we were trying to adopt out these kids when she, as the now claiming to be grandmother, doesn't want them adopted out.  We got a nasty phone call from social welfare....this can be very very bad for us.  More importantly, this can be very very bad for these kids.  The family clearly has documentable mental issues and doesn't want these kids....but we don't have a choice at the moment, and are going to try to place these kids back with their family. 

 

I'm preparing everything for them for the next 2 wks (milk, antibiotics, and multivitamins).  We want them to be on our milk program and come see the doctor every 2 wks so that they can get free milk, have weight checks, and be seen by a doctor so that they can stay healthy and have all their HIV needs followed.  Unfortunatley we'll probably never see them again once they leave the center as this family seems very unstable.  But we can pray.  I'm praying that when we go back to the family today and tell them that we are giving them the babies back that they will REFUSE to take them and that we will have to keep them!  Maybe we can give them a forever home with a forever family, but we can at least keep them here happy, healthy, and loved!  I'm praying the family will just drop their claims as they are just trying to use this for money and issues as they see us a ministry with money run by the white people.  They cannot care for these children and I fear for their safety if they go home back to the situation we pulled them from.  Now we are just waiting and trying to sort it all out.  They could be gone as early as today.....Please pray with me that this kids will be healthy and safe and protected no matter the outcome!  Please read the original situation these little tykes where in on my blog because this is where they will be returning and pray over Mario and Carolina.

 

more about Addie's condition

well girls and boys I just returned from a long day in the city!  I went to our (on the center) church this am, then went with another missionary into the city for the day.  We ate lunch, conversed, ate icecream, sat by the sea, saw Addie in the hospital (update below) and then to an English Church....then out for something to nibble on again.    I can not tell you how good it feels to gather together in the middle of a large city that doesn't speak English with other people from all over the world that DO speak English and live and work or serve in this city for church....to worship and fellowship together.  Now most of you are saying...but don't you have lots of missionaries that you live with that speak English and are from all over the world.  Indeed we do.  There are about 35ish of us at the present and we represent 8 different countries.  The difference is we live together physically, have fellowship/community together, work together, eat together, breathe the same air together, rest together....basically we are together 24-7.  Sometimes it is just nice to sit and worship corporately and just completely and utterly be yourself completely vulnerable and open and not thinking about the person next to you.  I now have a new helper nurse wise in the BH on wkends so I am only doing every 3rd wkend.  I'm hoping to be able to go to this church more frequently to have "English church" and worship with a community that is slightly larger than the one I am with 24-7.  I think it might be very good for me. 

 

Anyway, on to my update on Addie and the real reason I'm posting...probably the REAL reason you're reading this at the present too.

 

I was glad I got to go see her in the hospital today.  I've only been to see her one time since she went in 2.5 wks ago.  That was 2 days after she entered.  I don't have a car or the ability to drive a ministry vehicle (as they are all manuals and I only drive automatic....he he).  So I haven't had the chance to go see her myself.  I've been reliant on the info the tias have been supplying us with.  Which I know isn't really good as they know nothing medically and the doctors don't really talk to them anyhow about the baby and their condition.  Immediately when I entered and saw her I was stunned.  She looks so pale and frail.  She really doesn't look good.  She's so uncomfortable and she doesn't even have a voice so she's crying all hoarse and it's pathetic.  Her little arms and legs are 3 shades darker black than her face.  they've done a patchy job at shaving her cute little curly head cause they can't keep an iv in her and they couldn't find anymore good spots so they had been searching for more veins in her head.  She just looks at you with these big pitiful round eyes that scream....help me.  The kind I hated when I was a nurse in the NICU that just seemed to say....."I hate this; life sucks; I don't want to do this; I'm miserable; can you just help me; I'd rather be sleeping forever and ever than fighting like this" kinda look.  I hate that kinda look.  She has this horrible cough that is persistent....she has so many thick secretions she's struggling to breathe and cry and it makes her feel yucky with a capital Y.  But they are too thick and yucky to cough up on her own....but noone is suctioning her out.  I wanted to go find some suction and just go to it for about 10 minutes and really clean her out.  It was time to eat when we were there so the tia tried to feed her and she'd take 2 sips then stop and pant for breath and try to cough up more secretions and then cry and then try again.  Heart wrenching.  She's still having diarrhea on and off and fevers pretty consistently.  I asked the tia about the oxygen and whether she had needed it or they had been giving it to her and her response was no...she doesn't need it cause she can drink her bottle well.  if that's well, then normal babies drink bottles supernaturally well (they must inhale it by osmosis or something).  it was really kinda gut wrenching cause I was just holding this tiny creature that looks really sick and I want to do so much for her but I can't physically do a darn thing for her.  And her caregiver isn't a medical person and is her first and last line of defense since the nurses do nothing for them.  They have NO clue how the kid is doing.  So there she sits a really uneducated tia that thinks this baby is all hunky dorey and tells me that Addie is "much better."  If that's a true statement...then I'm glad I didn't see her before cause they kid didn't stop coughing and crying and choking the entire 15 minutes I was there. 

 

The good news is she's still on powerful antibiotics (which didn't help for the first 10 days so I'm sure the longer she stays on them they're just wasted money, but whatever...no need to try a different one).  She's on a powerful antifungal that hopefully will kill the fungal infection racking her body (and yes she still has a visible yeast infection in her mouth) and she's been on TB meds since Friday.  So these are all good things...I just wish they'd give her some iron or something cause she really needs a blood transfusion but they don't do those here unless it's really life or death because of the risks the transfusion itself poses....but a little multivitamin with iron never hurt anyone....and I wish they'd give her some oxygen and suction her out.  But apparently that's asking for too much at this stage.  She'll probably be there for another 2 wks.  I pray she can make it another 2 wks.  This lung infection could kill her.  Please continue to stand with us and pray for Addie.  She's 4 months now and still the size of a newborn.  She's so tiny and frail.  I really just felt in my heart today that we needed to stand and intercede for her with everything we have.  I pray the TB meds kick in and that the anti-fungal meds work and that they find antibiotics that kill her pneumonia.  That she'll have a calm, no pain, and can breathe easier.  That her fever and diarrhea will cease.  That her tia taking care of her will be given strength and wisdom and know supernaturally when she needs to speak up about Addie's condition and tell the nurses something is wrong with her.  I pray for wisdom for the doctors and nurses that they will be given treatment plans and idea on how to help her.  I pray most of all that Addie would just be more comfortable and grow stronger and stronger each minute!!!  I'll keep updating you when I get new information, but please continue to pray with me!