Friday, February 7, 2014

A Miracle Nonetheless....

Things are in full swing at the clinic.  Just this past week, the primary and secondary schools started a new school year…. and with the beginning of their school years, the popularity of the clinic has also heightened.  The kids and staff come in with different needs, different ailments… but all needing attentive care and attention.  And so we care.   We clean wounds, listen to lungs, and test for malaria.  We listen, educate, and pray with.  And the word that sticks out to me personally is the word, “we”  We.  We are the staff that make up the clinic.  We are a clinical officer, an assistant, and four nurses.  We are a team… handpicked and crafted by our God.  And I personally celebrate the way in which our God has brought us together…. increasingly so in the last couple of months.  And I believe that one of the people that God used to bring us together was a sweet little girl named Ruth.  It was back in November when we first met her.  She was brought to the clinic frail and sick with dangerously low blood levels, pressure wounds, and need for treatment of her sickle cell anemia. Sweet little Ruth….. with her momma at her side.  Her voice barely above a whisper…. yet her grace and sweetness spilled from her.  Money was tight, uncertainty ever present, and there was an acute awareness that without a miracle, this young girl would die  And as she lay on a bed in our sick bay, God did something so sweet.  It my opinion, it was on this very day that God brought to culmination something that had been in process for a long time.  It was the day, I believe, that we became a genuine team.   As a group of individuals desiring to help this young girl and momma, we formed a plan.  Each of us had a distinct role…. with a common goal.  Together, as a team, we took an impromptu offering…. together, we allowed Jesus to use each of us to be His hands and feet to this girl and her momma.  Before Ruth left that day to go to Kiwoko Hospital for further treatment, we were privy to an amazing miracle.  We watched as Ruth gave her heart to Jesus and asked Him into her heart.  We knew that no matter what happened physically that this little girl has just experienced the ultimate healing.  And so she went.  Her journey took her from the local hospital near New Hope to the Mulago Hospital.  And added to her illnesses was metastatic cancer.  After a month long  stay at Mulago Hospital, it become clear that Ruth’s time on this earth was coming to an end.  Again, it was a time for our team to unite… to work together as a team along with the Special Needs Department to orchestrate her return home.  And home she came.  Her dad, who had been distant and uninvolved reconnected with little Ruth.  And shortly before she went home to her Heavenly Daddy… her earthly daddy accepted Christ into his heart.  Sweet Ruth…. we only knew her such a short time… but I really do believe that God used her in sweet and real ways.  And I am so thankful.  Her life was forever changed and I am confident that our team was also forever changed.