Emergency Prayer Needed
Dear Friends and Family,
We are in Finca 2 and began our lessons at the school this morning after being greeted with so many hugs and kisses. We were on our way to the classroom for the second lesson when Jackie (our 15 year-old daughter)suddenly dropped to the ground.
I was a little ahead of her but Gracie, our missionary friend was next to her. She was unconsious and the girls called me immediately. When I turned back, she was lying on the floor in a full epileptic seizure. She has never had a seizure before. Her body was convulsing and her face was blue. There was a pool of blood under her head which I though came from her mouth.
I screamed wildly and began praying outloud like a madwoman. Gracie is medically trained so she tended to her airway while I ripped off her shirt and started CPR on her. Her face became blue and she lost her pulse. (It is only by God's grace that I can write this right nowbecause I am physically and emotionally spent. ) EVERYONE...my daughter was temporarily dead. I screamed louder "THIS GIRL IS CALLED BY GOD, SHE IS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR...SHE IS THE DAUGHTER OF JESUS CHRIST AND SHE IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE.... I called her name, no response. She was foaming from the mouth and we realized the blood was from a laceration in her head.
We waited for an ambulance while Rebekah sprinted to the home where Larry and Ted were supposed to be working. I called out to her. "JACKIE, COME BACK. YOU ARE THE LORD'S" as I pumped her heart. Teachers brought cold towels and put ammonia under her nose. Her eyes began to roll and then she coughed.Like in the bible, we commanded, JACKIE, COME BACK... Everyone, she opened her eyes!!!!
We are in a remote village and in the best of times, the ambulance comes from about 15 miles away. There are no ambulance departments. They are private people with equipped vans and they wait at the hospital in case of emergency. It just so happened that one of the teachers knew that the ambulance driver lives in this village and he called the home number of the ambulance driver to ask his wife where he was. The driver had forgot his cell phone this morning when he went to work and had turned around to come back home and to get it. He lives only a few houses from the school where we were and walked into his home just as the teacher called his home. The Lord provided so the ambulance was right here. Rebekah found that Larry and Ted were not there. They were 15 miles away at the hardware store buying materials for the kitchen they are building so they were not in the village.
I rode in the ambulance in terror. She was awake and talking but I had literally stared death in the face. It was an ugly sight and haunting and I am having a terrible time with flashbacks as are her sisters.
At the hospital, she received 5 stitches, a pain shot, blood work and a bag of IV fluids. The people in this country have a high regard for missionaries, especially those from the US, and when we arrived they took us straight to the operating room and began her care. They never asked for our info and never wrote a bill. They insisted that we were serving them in such a way that this is a way they can serve us. Again God provided. (Not that I cared if the bill was a million dollars).
Someone drove to where Larry and Ted were and they joined us at the hospital. Once she was stable, we were transferred to a second hospital for her to have an X-Ray of her skull. There is no fracture thank God but a huge bump from where she hit the tile floor. Once blood work came back they determined no internal bleeding they released her. She is sore from her muscles contracting and from the seizure and she will follow up with a neurologist when we return. There is no reason why this happened, all of her tests are normal.
If you do not believe that miracles still happen today and that God is a living God, who loves his children and hears their prayers, I am here to tell you first hand that OUR GOD SAVES... OUR GOD HEALS, OUR GOD PROVIDES, OUR GOD PROTECTS, OUR GOD LOVES....AND OUR GOD ANSWERS OUR PRAYERS. I called on him and He heard me and answered my prayers. Ez??
While at the hospitals for the entire day, the other girls stuck together and prayed with Ted. They decided to take the reigns and continue the lessons with the last class. They came together and carried on. We are so proud of them for their excellent service under such difficult times. The first thing Jackie talked about was ruining the trip. She did not want to cause the mission not to go forward. (OY!!) But little did the girls know, that by going forward they helped Jackie to heal immensely. They acted in a true selfless way.
Gracie reminded me later that as we worked together tending to Jackies spiritual and physical needs by using the power of GOD in us, we were being watched by 12 or so teachers and many young students. When Jackie was conscious and taken into the ambulance a local women took her shoes off and handed them to Gracie because she saw Jackie being taken away barefooted (she was left without shoes), they all witnessed a true biblical miracle of God who used two lowly women to carry it out. As I write this, still shaking and weak, Jackie is sitting on the porch surrounded by so many children from the village. She is laughing and practicing her Spanish.
I apologize to our family that you will hear about this by email but we have no telephone access at all. Please know that God loves Jackie more than we ever could and that she is in His hands. Thank you to all the people who have committed to pray for us regularly while we are here. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you were not praying back there, we might not have had this victory. Greater is God who is in us that he who is in the world. The enemy will not win. PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR US. Pray specifically that she will be protected and that Rebekah and I especially would stop having the horrendous flashbacks. This was very traumatic for all of us but the strength of the Lord will see us through. Please do not worry as that will not help us at all. ONLY prayer will see us through! We love you and will have many more testimonies only hopefully they will not be of this type!!
After lunch the girls were asked to help with the preparation of tamales for the community fiesta this weekend. The preparation involved cutting down banana leaves (which were about 10 feet tall!!), cooking them over an open fire, and cutting them off the stem. Today the girls will get to learn how to wash the leaves and cook the rest of the tamales. They had to cut 200 banana leaves, so I can only imagine how many tamales they will have to make!!
The girls returned, and we prepared for a few of the ladies in the community to come to our house to attend a womens meeting where Gracie taught on self image and transparency. There was a great turn out and a great time of fellowship and conversation! While the women were meeting, the children all had a chance to play in the yard. The girls taught the kids how to play Red Rover. Obviously the three tall girls had a large advantage over the small children, but everyone had a great time and you could hear the laughs and screams down the street. 
