That is certainly true! On Thursday, March 8, 2012, Blet Jaw and I blissfully enjoyed our new motorbike, taking it for the second time to 2 villages. But —-The very next day we were on our way to Chiang Mai hospital in a medical vehicle for emergency surgery!!
Before you get too concerned let me tell you how God helped us through a difficult time. At 3 a.m. Friday morning, I was woken up by groans of pain! Blet Jaw was experiencing excruciating pain in the upper right quadrant of his abdomen. This has happened before and I thought it was gallstones, However, soon the pain localized in the right lower quadrant with rebound tenderness. This means appendicitis! I thought quickly – we are 6 hours away from any facility that can do surgery. That is 3 hours to Omkoi hospital which does not do surgery, and another 3 hours away from a hospital near Chiang Mai that does surgery. The pain and other symptoms could mean the appendix was soon to rupture. Time could be really crucial. I did not tell Blet Jaw this, but I was nervous, praying and telling him that we must get to the hospital. He finally did consent to go.
To complicate matters a little, we had a visitor, Sunny, in BYT who had been with us one week. Now we had to abandon her with no possible way to let her know how long we would have to be gone. She cannot speak any of the language and does not know anyone there. But stay she must — and go we must. (Let me add here that she did excellently there, enjoying the time alone)!
Forty minutes into our drive to the hospital, the pain lessened, which instantly made Blet Jaw want to turn around and go back. I was behind the wheel and I certainly was not going to turn around for anything! He told me then that if it had felt this much better before leaving he would not have come. However, now I was really nervous, because this could mean the appendix had ruptured! Later I realized that it was the miracle working power of God who held off the pain and the danger until he could have surgery. When we arrived at Omkoi hospital we found out that the lab tests etc certainly did affirm appendicitis and the offending part must be taken out. Now he needs to go to the larger hospital in Chaing Mai where he can have surgery. This was certainly not what he wanted to do!
The bad appendix came out at 8p.m. Friday evening. Blet Jaw was discharged Sunday morning. It was not difficult to leave the 32 bed ward of patients with a poor small baby crying incessantly in the next bed and me sleeping on the floor under the bed and hardly any food available to eat! But it was difficult for poor Blet Jaw, just 40 hours post surgery to catch a ride in an OLD bus 6 hours to Omkoi, where we got into our own truck and drove another 5 hours all the way around to the school, LKY, where he would spend some time recuperating. (I must say though that it is always sad to say goodbye to the people around you that become very dear as you help look after each other).
As I look back on this experience, I can only fall on my knees and thank God for lovingly caring for us that day and making a way and saving us from disaster.
Psalm 17:7, 8 says: “Show Thy marvelous lovingkindness, O Thou that savest by Thy right hand them which put their trust in Thee. …Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of Thy wings.”