Where I Need To Be

The days continue to pass as I seek to find my role. The past week the Myhres have been gone, requesting that Heidi (RN) and I handle the pediatric ward in their absence – no small request, but glad for the opportunity to help. The number of patients have ranged from 30-50 each day, some critically ill and some not so bad.

Yesterday I sent a very healthy looking, energetic, smiley boy of two home , only to discover he had come back to the ward in the middle of the night, now deathly ill, gasping and panting with each labored breath. What happened? I don’t know. I only pray that the child is still alive when I enter the swinging blue, broken doors of the ward tomorrow. I also cry out to Jesus that the young infant girl who had seizures constantly yesterday, also clinging to dear life, will somehow be made well.

I am reminded of a young boy, Birungi Swezen that I encountered nearly 18 months ago in the same pediatric ward. Never before I had I seen such a child, more dead than alive, five years old and just over 10 pounds. It was speculated he would be dead in a few hours, if not minutes. I had little hope. The nurses could get no IV in his fragile body, but somehow I managed an external jugular in the neck. I left that day with full expectation that Birungi would not survive to see me again. Somehow he did. And another day. And another day. A few weeks later I left Uganda, with Birungi still in the peds ward. I later saw a picture of him, several months after our first encounter. I cried. The picture showed a beautiful looking child, with smooth skin, healthy, hair, and walking! Walking!

The dead can be raised to life. I cling to that. I too was once dead, but am now alive.

I am thankful to be back in this place. Death and disease are so very visible here, frustrations often abound, and there is something so real, so palpable about the necessity of Jesus in my own life. You may never understand why I am here, maybe I will never fully comprehend either, but this is where I need to be.

-Scott