Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
7 As my life was fading away,
I remembered Yahweh.
My prayer came to You,
to Your holy temple.
I remembered Yahweh.
My prayer came to You,
to Your holy temple.
Esther, our eldest child, was born in Kendu Bay, Kenya—the home
town of President Barak Obama’s father. We were missionaries at Ikizu in
Tanzania, and she spent the first two and a half years of her life there. Ikizu
experiences two separate rainy seasons in the year. During each rainy season
mosquitoes abound, and malaria becomes a major problem.
We had no malaria prophylactic for such a young child. Even
though we took precautions like having her sleep under a mosquito net, she came
down with malaria. There were two standard treatments for malaria available to
us, Chloroquine and Camoquin. Chloroquine was much easier on the patient, but
much of the malaria in our area was resistant to it. Camoquin, on the other
hand, was still effective in most cases but was sufficiently poisonous so that
the patient would nearly die of the cure.
Esther invariably contracted the Chloroquine resistant
strain of malaria. Each time her temperature shot up to 105° or 106°F (above
40.5°C), naturally, under medical recommendations, we tried Chloroquine first,
and it would have no effect. Then, in desperation we switched to Camoquin. Blood
tests showed that we had eliminated disease, but she would be absolutely
prostate in bed for upwards of a week after being “cured.” Each bout seemed to
hit her harder than the previous one, and as the December 1971 rainy season approached,
Sylvia and I became concerned that we would lose Esther to malaria this time.
We had a furlough back to the U.S. scheduled for late in
January. I requested permission to send Sylvia and Esther away in December,
early enough, we hoped, to miss the rains and mosquitoes. The response was, of
course, that this was against policy and couldn’t be done. We felt desperate
and prayed earnestly for the Lord’s intervention. Eventually He not only
intervened to let them leave early but also allow me to go with them. We took
several doses of Camoquin with us just in case Esther had a relapse in America
where many doctors have no experience treating this tropical disease. By God’s grace
we never had to use them.
Thank You, Lord, that
indeed You hear us even when we seem to be near death’s door.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThe reading would be bettered if you include occurrences and of course dates. I have never gathered that your Esta was born in Kenya. You once blogged the worst hospital in the World being Musoma. I wonder how it compares with Gendia as we generally refer Kendu-bay hospital in Kiswahili. I have never been there but being a resident of Tarime (northern Tanzania) I am well informed of the Seventh day Adventist establishment at the area which includes an old church press.
You are more accessible to information and you can be of more help.
Around 1884 the Germans and the Britts had a border agreement to make around lake Victoria area. The Germs considered Kendu bay as appropriate because a person of their National had lived there. I suspect the character was the pioneer of Seventh-day Adventism. Accordingly, it was a Germ sphere of influence. The Britts encountered the argument by showing that Mr Speke the first European to find lake Victoria had travelled all the way to Bunda village (near Ikizu) whereby he named the Gulf after his name. So Speke Gulf was a Britt sphere of influence. To avert a military confrontation they agreed to put the beacon half-way between at Mohoro Bay north of the present Shirati Hospital which was also Germ. From the said beacon and using a straight edge they linked it to Mt. Kilimanjaro beacon which was already consolidated.
One therefore wonders, how old is Gendia ?
I have never heard the history behind these places. What you write is very interesting to me. Thanks for including it here. Kendu Bay and Gendia are villages about two miles apart. The press was in Gendia and the hospital in Kendu Bay in those days.
ReplyDeleteAt the time Esther was born there were two doctors whom I knew personally and trusted at Kendu Bay. They were fully trained doctors with four years of medical training and a year or two of residency experience. The only "doctors" at the Musoma Hospital at the time were Chinese who had very little more than one year of medical training in China. I found that many people in our area would rather come to the dresser at Ikizu than go to Musoma. They didn't trust Musoma either. So going to Kendu Bay for our daughter's birth made a lot of sense.