Our miracle from God

   It started out as a normal gate knock- if any gate knock at 3 in the morning can be considered normal. We walked down to clinic where we found a lady who very much looked and sounded like she was ready to have a baby. After getting them inside in the clinic and checking the lady out we found the baby would not be born quite yet. Her blood pressure was alarmingly high so we gave her something for that and continued to monitor her as a new day dawned sunny and beautiful here in the mountains. We did decide to go back to the house for a bit to get more properly ready for the day and to eat a bite.

   Clinic started as usual for the day and I for sure thought we would soon have a baby! Her blood pressure was not coming down like we had hoped it would so we continued medication for that and also gave something to increase contractions. The lady was not being overly cooperative with us and so much of our time was spent coaching her and trying to get things to move along more quickly.

   We were grateful to have Dr. Shepherd there with us, a doctor who had come on a team to work at clinic for a few days. His experience was extremely helpful and we would later find out, invaluable. 

   After what felt like hours- actually it was hours- of coaching and attempting to get this baby to be born, the baby was here- but with the cord around the neck. They quickly removed the cord but instead of a crying, flailing baby there was only silence. The doctors immediately started chest compressions and mouth-to- mouth. Time seemed to stand still... they worked on the little dear for a good 15 minutes trying to get a heartbeat. The room felt tense as we waited for a breath, anything to know she was going to make it. Finally after what felt like hours,  the baby did start to take some breaths on its own and hope filled our hearts as our prayers continued to ascend to the Heavenly Father. I cannot describe the feelings that were going on in that tiny room. I only know that God looked down on our clinic, heard the prayers of our hearts to please bring life to this child and help her to live! God answered our prayers with a miracle right before our very eyes.

   But that’s not the end of the story. They had moved the baby to another area in the room to continue oxygen and monitoring. I happened to glance over at the mom only to see her having a full blown seizure. It was another very scary moment... but God once again brought her through ok!

  Once the baby was more stable, I sat and held her. I held the oxygen to her and listened to her little gaspy breaths. She still had not cried at all so every now and then we would try to get her a little upset:) We also put an IV in her to give her some fluids and she even sucked some on a bottle which amazed us all!!

We continued to monitor both mama and baby for a few days and we are so happy to say that they are both doing extremely well! She acts like a normal baby and has a wonderful set of lungs!:) God is so good! Today we watched them leave and I can’t describe the joy of seeing the happy parents with their beautiful baby girl... the Dad is so proud and the mom is the perfect picture of happy first time motherhood. And the baby...well I don’t think you could get any cuter!!:)

  The dad had asked Kayla and I to name the baby and so we chose the name, Jiana Hope. Jiana means God is gracious. 

  Friends, God does answer prayer and He certainly did for us! It also amazes me to think that God knew all along that those doctors would be at our clinic on February 20 and how much we would need them here! 

If you don’t believe in miracles, well I hope you do now, because God gave us a miracle that day right before our very eyes! 

Gods plan, the best plan.

“We need you Mis. My dad fell of a horse and his pain is eating him”. I smiled to myself at his way of explaining his dads pain and assured him that we’d come see what was up. Ben, Autumn and I ran down to clinic to find him on a typical ‘lil make-shift cot right outside of our clinic gate along with a crowd of people. We transferred him to our emergency room and did a quick assessment. He had a large hematoma on his forehead and when Autumn moved his arm his upper arm showed an “elbow” where there isn’t supposed to be one...a very broken humerus and none of us found it humorous. :) We set and splinted it and put him in our hospital room for the night and Ben transferred him to a hospital in Grand Goâve early the next morning to get it casted.
That same afternoon, he shows back up at clinic on a moto...just like he left. No cast, just the same splint we’d put on him. I think every single one of us groaned. He had an ex-ray from the hospital but said that the hospital in Grand goâve told him that they don’t have a Dr who can set and cast bones for 2 more days and advised him to go back to the blans (whites).
Backing up a ‘lil, in the meantime we figured out that he was the father of two brothers who had robbed our mission a couple years ago. They had broken into one of our houses while everyone was gone and taken quite a few electronics and cash. Since then, different ones have been able to become friends with them.
Anyways, so when their father came back to clinic that afternoon, we had no choice but to cast his arm. None of us current nurses had ever done a cast before so it wasn’t the speediest process ever. We had had a long day and I think most of us were tempted to feel very discouraged and pretty annoyed at the lameness of the other hospital. We had invited company for supper and we would’ve all loved to be enjoying good food with them.
The dear ‘lil old man was incredibly tough and had an amazing pain tolerance. He had to have been in a ton of pain but he just sat there and grinned as I cocked his hat to the side (just cause that’s what I do to people who wear hats to clinic. For no reason, it’s just a weird Emma-thing and I’m not even embarrassed about it). His wife just sat there with a very calm and concerned look on her face the entire time and his son (the one who robbed us) was a huge help as we casted not only once, but twice. We casted the first time and it didn’t seem quite right. I had this weird gut feeling about it and Kayla and Ben seemed like they did too so we proceeded to remove it and start over. Anyways...in case you didn’t know, casts are super hard to remove without the proper equipment. It took probably an hour to get it completely removed before we could start over. His son was a huge help to us. He did most of the cast removal and we actually had a lot of fun. We did the 2nd cast and were MUCH more satisfied with how it turned out.
As they were leaving, and I stood there pondering the last 24 hours events, all the confusion made sense. The robber, the very un-Christian family, The broken arm, the lame hospital and the Gods love in our hearts. God gave us the opportunity to spend several hours working closely with them and serving them in that way and looking back, it was beautiful. Yep, there was quick research and quite a bit of sweat too but I think it was Gods plan and I feel honored to be a part of His kingdom.

Look past the unknown and allow God to use you. Lend your ear and offer that cup of cold water to the least of these today, friends. It’s worth it. Very worth it - I promise.
I’m posting a few photos of Ben, Kayla and I doing the cast. Enjoy. :)
-Mis Emma