Hello Friends,
It has been too long since I last posted! Please forgive me!
I wanted to share a story with you. My husband and I recently had the opportunity to spend 3 weeks in Nepal serving with some believers there. Our purpose was to trek out to hard to reach Tibetan Buddhist villages in the mountains with the hope of learning about their culture, learning about their physical and spiritual needs and sharing the gospel with them. The information gathered would help believers in Nepal to better serve and reach these people. About halfway into our trip our team faced the most difficult circumstance that we have ever been forced to confront. Here is the story. I hope that it points you to the glorious wonders of our Creator, Savior and Healer, Jesus Christ.
The story is in the form of a letter, as I originally wrote it while in Kathmandu as an update to family and friends. Here it is:
Hey Family and Friends,
This is Jenn :)
So, the last 72 hours have been the craziest and scariest of our lives, but the Lord has been SO faithful to provide for us and has shown His glory in miraculous ways! Right now, Andrew and I are at the Ciwec Travel Clinic (here is the website) in Kathmandu. Andrew has been vomiting several times an hour for the past 72 hours and so doctors here are treating him with I.V. fluids and anti-nausea/vomiting medicine. We are spending the night here and the doctors will re-evaluate again in the morning. At this point, they believe that Andrew has an acute viral infection in his stomach, a condition that he will just have to suffer through for a few days until it passes. Please pray that he would feel better soon and that his vomiting would stop so that he can rest tonight. He is MUCH better than he was 48 hours ago, but still has a ways to go.
I just wanted to share with you the miracles that we have experienced over the past few days in hopes that you would rejoice with us in the knowledge that what Satan would use for evil, God will use for our good and His glory!
Here is the story. It's amazing.
After a crazy two day jeep ride through the mountains of Nepal, we arrived in the city of Taplejung. Taplejung is the last town that is reachable by road in this area of Nepal. We left the town of Taplejung by foot on Thursday morning and began our trek to the remote Tibetan villages in the mountains of eastern Nepal. When we stopped for lunch on Friday afternoon Andrew started to feel sick, but we assumed that he was suffering from heat exhaustion and just needed some rest. Friday night we stopped in a small village to spend the night. When we went to sleep Andrew began to feel worse. He vomited throughout the night Friday, all day Saturday and all night Saturday night. Saturday night was the scariest night of my life. Andrew was sick, sick, sick, vomiting almost constantly. He was incredibly dehydrated (at this point he had not been able to eat or drink anything for over 24 hours and had thrown up everything in his system) and could not keep ANYTHING down. I cried out desperately to God to rescue us and heal Andrew, but I did not know how He would answer my prayer.
The village where we were staying was a strenuous two day hike from the nearest road, and then from there, a two day drive to Kathmandu. That being said, walking to medical care was not an option, so our team leader began the procedures for having Andrew medically evacuated by helicopter. We were hoping that a helicopter would be able to evacuate Andrew on Sunday morning, but we did not know if it was actually a possibility. So much was up in the air: the weather (it is monsoon season in Nepal and a helicopter can not fly through a monsoon), our ability to give our exact location for the helicopter (no addresses in Nepal, no GPS coordinates to go by for the village), our cell phone battery was almost dead so phone conversations had to literally be seconds long.
We literally needed a miracle and God worked many! I wanted to share them with you. As you read, please REJOICE with me! Praise God with me for His grace and mercy in rescuing Andrew from what could have been a much more desperate situation.
Miracles:
1. Two weeks ago another volunteer working with the our believer friends in Kathmandu became desperately sick in a village and almost had to be evacuated from another area of Nepal. Because of this, our friends were already familiar with the steps necessary for a medical evacuation. Coordinating a medical evacuation is MUCH more complicated than a simple phone call. It took hours for the our friends to coordinate it all, but God worked it out. That was a MIRACLE!
2. Our guide, James, an incredible brother in Christ and native Nepali, had a signal on his cell phone. In the middle of the mountains of Nepal. In an incredibly remote area that can only be reached by foot. That is a MIRACLE. He was able to call our friends in Kathmandu who arranged for the medical evacuation.
3. There was a Nepali village woman in the village next to us who had received several months of training as a nurse. In her home she had two bottles of Saline solution and a sterile needle. Seriously. She came to the home where we were staying on Saturday night, when Andrew was at his worst, and was able to give Andrew over 1 liter of fluids to help relieve his dehydration. By candle light and headlamps, she set up the I.V. with a piece of old twine tied to the rafters of the porch. With Andrew laying on a bench we covered his arm with Germ-X and the woman put in the I.V. That there would be I.V. fluids and a trained nurse in the middle of the mountains in the middle of nowhere is an absolute MIRACLE. This kind of medicine in the mountains is unheard of (literally).
4. On Sunday morning, the helicopter could not find us and could not contact us (we had no cell phone signal on Sunday morning). There was apparently another village by the same name an hour away from our location. Our friends from the Summit church who live and work in Nepal looked over a map of another area of the country and realized that the helicopter had gone to the wrong village. The helicopter pilot was able to pick up a guide from a nearby village who was familiar with the area to lead him to our village. That they were able to find us in a virtually unmapped area without being able to contact us was a MIRACLE.
5. We were having trouble finding a landing spot for the helicopter. There was a rice paddy on the side of the mountain by our village, but they are usually several inches thick with mud. However, it was dry enough and big enough for the helicopter to land. The owner of the paddy just asked for money to cover the damage (250 Nepali rupees, which equates to something like 4 American dollars). That was a MIRACLE.
6. Andrew got to ride in a helicopter over the mountains of Nepal on his 25th birthday. Miracle :)
7. With Andrew in good hands, the rest of our team was able to continue on their trek to reach the Tibetan villages in the high mountains which have probably never heard of the hope of salvation in Christ Jesus. Though Satan would have stopped the gospel from going forth, God provided miraculously so that the precious people in these villages could hear about His glorious gospel! What a MIRACLE!
"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." ~ Philippians 4:4-7
I love you and praise God for you ALL! Keep praying! Keep rejoicing!
