Renewed Strength!
“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” Isaiah 40:31
Not much time for sleep and overcoming jet lag. I was so excited to be back in Thailand and be reunited with BletJhaw, his family and all the people in our villages, that I jumped forward 13 hours, or do you say, lost 13 hours of time with no weariness!
BletJhaw had a man drive him to the Suvarnabahmi International Airport to meet me when I arrived close to ten p.m. Then we drove all night to MaeSot, arriving at 6:30a.m. I had lost 2 nights of sleep because I am never able to sleep a wink on those long flights. By the grace of the Lord, the following day we drove to BYT. BletJhaw’s entire family was able to come with us this time. The weather was good until the last steep descent into our village when there was a sudden downpour of rain causing us to slide in all crazy angles and we were barely prevented from going over the cliff. Before reaching home however, we slid into a deep ditch and were hopelessly stuck. BletJhaw ran and borrowed a pick ax in the pouring rain and got us out. Next we could not make it up the final climb to our house. Lo and behold the 4-wheel drive had broken again. The truck still sits at the bottom of that hill.
My first day back!
I don’t believe rainy season is over yet because it has poured with rain all the time. Right away we were thrown into our work! Along with many patients coming for treatment, a young man from WST came asking us to please come and check his wife, JiYee. She had delivered a baby 2 days prior and was experiencing severe abdominal pain.
JiYee’s husband leading us up the ladder into his small bamboo house
I examined her, and became concerned because she had 2 of the symptoms that could mean dangerous infection of the uterus. I must pray and make a major decision. There is a great possibility for an emergency trip to the hospital. Once again that helpless feeling, because our truck did not have 4-wheel drive now and the road conditions would never allow us to pass through. Even the motorbike ride to WST and back had been a struggle in the crazy mud.
We prayed for JiYee, and treated her as best we could, telling the husband to come and get us if she got any worse at all. That night we really prayed for God’s healing hand. The next day we drove back to check on her and found her 60% better!
She smiled at me and it made me feel like the bright sunshine had broken through the dark clouds of my soul!! Oh what relief and joy! She will be fine now!
As we left her house the sunshine did break through the clouds and my heart was singing. We stopped at the house of a girl from whom we had purchased many beautiful Karen skirts and tops. We will mail them to Valerie Hunt in America as she feels people will want to buy them.
After that we visited BeKey, who had a baby 8 days before. She had lost her husband, DuPe to suicide two years ago, and now has remarried and delivered her 7th child. Her life has been quite hard, but now she is radiantly happy and her baby girl is beautiful. They named her PawEhCher meaning sweet love flower.
So much has changed after being gone for 3 ½ months! How lovely to see how much the little children have grown.
But our day is not over yet! We needed to walk down to the middle of the village to check a man who reportedly could not walk, and could not even sit up to try to eat. Immediately BletJhaw and I could tell he had scrub typhus and were able to give him the correct medication that would pull him out of this deadly disease and give him relief in one and a half days.
Late at night when we thought we had time to rest, an excited voice came calling loudly at the door. Please come and check a man, “Git,” whose truck just turned completely over after the river crossing! He was hauling a big load of wood and the uphill right hand turn caused the heavy load to get unbalanced and roll the truck off the road. Walking up to his house we passed the truck. All the village people together could not pull it out with their ropes. They managed to get it off its roof and onto its side, but now the bank put gravity against them! The angels must have stopped this truck from taking one more roll, plunging him into the rocks of the river below! We went to the man’s house and saw the patient, his family, and many village folk in nervous excitement. People were crying and Git was shaking with pain. It had been a scary accident and the man was experiencing severe pain in his right shoulder and chest.
This man is a devil worshiper, and while I was examining him, I got interrupted by someone coming to give him a special cup of “Prayer water” to drink – supposed to have the healing power of the demon spirits. I determined that he had no broken bones, but I needed to go back to the house and get him a shot for pain and medication to relax the muscles and stop inflammation. At the end of our visit, I had the privilege of praying for that man, his family, and friends. I thought about the prayer water he had just drunk, as a symbol of worshipping the devil, in comparison to this prayer to the all-powerful God of heaven that I was so in love with! That prayer left no doubt in the people’s minds where the power comes from! A hush came over the crowd. I could feel the Holy Spirit throughout my being just then! We went home and continued to pray for him.
Finally time to sleep! But God had brought blessings my way and renewed my strength!
The next day I saw Git. The entire village had been successful to pull that truck back up the bank with ropes! I shook Git’s hand and he thanked me for helping him. He had slept that night and now was so much better so quickly! I believe that once again God had heard and answered our prayers for healing and brought glory to His name.
Git is the man with the black jacket and white shirt