A Glimpse into 3rd World Poverty
Poverty in a 3rd world country sometimes looks like this; today it did for someone we know.
Your child is sick, seriously sick, he needs a blood transfusion, but has to be transferred to another hospital because not all hospitals are created equal here. Luckily you are able to transport him 30 minutes by motorbike, because an "ambulance" costs much more than you can afford. However, before your child can get the help he needs, you have to go home and find someone to buy some of your maize (dried corn) so you have some money to get proper care started. Selling this maize also means you will have less to feed your family. There is no government agency that can help you cover the cost, there is no guarantee you can sell your maize, there is no starting medical care without payment first, there is no (usually) payment for the days you can't work and there is no GoFundMe. It is up to you to get the money you need so your child can get the help he needs.
This is a regular occurrence in our area of Kenya...this is a level of poverty that I can't wrap my head around. I grew up where we got medical help first and paid later. I grew up where if your family was facing a hard time, government assistance was available. I grew up and parented with a "freedom" that if I or my child needed medical care we could get it immediately and I could figure out how to pay later. The poverty our area lives in is one of the reasons I always say that after prayer, money is our biggest need. We have needs, our village has needs, our staff has needs and that never stops. Everyone around us is facing challenges that we can't even fully understand.
Thankfully today we were able to step in and allow things to go down a smoother and faster road. I was notified that we had an employee with an emergency that needed to leave. Through being the "question queen" I was able to get the full picture I shared with y'all above. Jeff had some cash so we just handed some over and sent our employee straight to the hospital because his child needed help right then. We were only able to do this due to the burden God has placed on the hearts of donors and the obedience that y'all have followed through with. You can't fully know what it means to us to be trusted with this kind of responsibility and you can't know what it means to those being helped. While you will likely not ever meet this family they have been blessed by your generosity.
We just got an update that the child has high malaria and is being treated via IV for that currently. The hospital has ordered blood from a nearby town and it should be at the hospital tomorrow, he will be transfused then. After the transfusion they will keep him for at least 24 more hours.
Please keep us in prayer (us and the ones we work with and around)...the needs are huge here. The needs are often overwhelming here. The needs can and will weigh you down quickly here, because the reality is that we can't fix them all. The reality is that situations like I first described make me mad and sad and drive me to do more and more, to draw nearer and nearer to Jesus and to follow Him more and more closely.
