Malaria, Uganda, Squatter Camps, and Typhoid -- Words That Never Used to Cross My Mind

It's been an interesting week. It all started out very early Monday morning, around midnight actually, with Keaton coming down with a nasty flu bug. He's the only one in our family who has ever gotten a flu shot and has had it twice now this winter, so my faith in immunizations has been wavering a bit! When Kelsey got to school, her name was announced over the loud speaker as the winner of a Wii, so she called me to see if I could pick her up from school. She had stayed up extra late one night the prior week in an effort to turn in a paper for this contest, so she was very excited to have her efforts pay off. All day on Monday Heath was walking alongside a friend through a very tough set of circumstances and was able to pray with him. Haley had a very noneventful day, but her drama started occurring midweek.

On Wednesday night a lady from our church came over to donate a bunch of food to the Winter Jam youth retreat that we are helping host for our church. Even though we had never met, it didn't take long for us to strike up a conversation, and eventually we were talking about Haley's trip to Africa. She shared with Haley and me some of her experiences with immigrants to the States, and before long she was instructing Haley to make sure and take all of her malaria medication even if it made her sick. This lady knew someone who hadn't done that, and when he came back from a missions trip, he ended up being diagnosed with malaria, and it was fatal. Both Haley and I started internalizing this stark reality of what can really happen.

Yesterday I was perusing through Facebook and discovered some fascinating pictures posted by some relatives of mine. The mom and dad had just returned from visiting their daughter and her beautiful young family who had moved to Uganda last summer. There were pictures of them on a safari roaming in the midst of wild animals and playing near water inhabited by crocodiles. Their Americanized home was sharply contrasted to the horrible living conditions of the natives. Mosquito nets surrounded their beds, and bars were on their windows, but the view from the balcony was spectacular! When I shared these with Haley, we admitted our slight fear of malaria, but when she saw all the pictures of the babies in the orphanages, her heart just melted, and her passion was almost contagious as I sat near her side. Almost. There is still a big part of me that truly can't understand this passion that she has, and my mind just started wondering what exactly God has in store for her through all of this. My heart really started resonating with this mom's heart whose pictures I was viewing, and for the last 24 hours, I have been putting myself in her shoes, wondering how I could handle sending not only my daughter but my grandbabies as well into a long-term missions assignment. Just thinking about it was almost more than I could handle today. Only our faith in God can possibly sustain us!

This afternoon while I was at the office, Haley's rep from GE, Katie, called to inform me of the exact locations that Haley will be visiting. She will be in three different squatter camps (Diepsloot, Kya Sands, and Zandspruits) around Johannesburg, South Africa, and she will be at the village base of Chongwe, which is 30 to 40 minutes away from Lusaka, Zambia. Haley and I had a meeting planned after school with a nurse from Passport Health, and we figured it would be helpful to know these particulars. Katie answered a few more questions for me and then, as always, offered to pray with me before we hung up the phone. What a blessing! Among other things, she prayed over the financing of Haley's trip. When Haley and I met up at home, she shared with me another check that had come in the mail and a text that she had received saying that a check would be coming. Praise the Lord! Slowly but surely, God is pulling this all together!

Then we headed to our appointment in Moline and met with a nurse who specializes in foreign travel and the necessary immunizations. This is one big hurdle that I was not looking forward to, but she very thoroughly went through everything with us. Haley's normal childhood shots, tetanus, and hepatitis B were all up to date, but $230 later we walked out with one dose of hepatitis A injected into her arm and an ice pack with four oral typhoid tablets that she will need to take. We discussed everything from rabies to sunscreens and insect repellents to mosquito nets. Precautions were given with regard to water and foods. She gave us prescriptions to fill for traveler's diarrhea antibiotics and malaria medicine. We now have a longer list of things to pack and more reading material to consume some time. There will definitely be some shopping in our future, and we'll just pray that she has room to take everything she needs and that it all arrives with her.

Haley could literally feel the medicine making its way through her body after we left. It was a very strange feeling for her. We came home and gave her some Tylenol, but then she had to quickly turn to packing for her youth group's winter retreat which is happening tonight through Sunday right after lunch. As soon as she's done with that, she'll move right into her Perspectives class for another 2 1/2 hours. After praying over both my girls that the Holy Spirit would move through them and that God would continue to mold them, they bounced their way out of the house with all their stuff, and I was left to stand and wonder what all God will continue to do in their hearts this weekend. He has created them with two totally different personalities, but one thing is for sure . . . Haley and Kelsey both love the Lord and desire to serve Him. What more could a mother possibly want for them? Pray for them, would you? In fact, feel free to pray for all the kids at winter retreat this weekend! And pray for their mothers and fathers who may eventually find themselves using new words like I'm now using!