Christmas is always a special time of year, and our family really enjoyed the holiday this past week. We ate special food and gave each other gifts and enjoyed taking some time off to be together. It’s amazing to watch our kids grasp the spiritual significance of the season more and more each year, as well. This year the spiritual significance went a whole different direction for me. On Christmas Day I got a visit from a friend whose baby boy had been sick for almost two weeks and wasn’t responding to antibiotics. I called the doctor and we put him on something a little stronger and they took him home. After that we took the kids outside to play with their new bat and ball and badminton set, and we got a call about a woman who had given birth earlier in the day but hadn’t delivered the afterbirth and they were concerned that she would bleed to death. Elizabeth and I gathered some things and started out on the 45-minute hike to check on her. We found her surrounded by about 30 family members in a hut about the size of my bathroom. She was lying on a pile of leaves on the ground, almost completely unresponsive, with her newborn daughter laying close beside. Pal people never cut the umbilical cord until the afterbirth is delivered, so this hours-old baby was still attached to her mother. Elizabeth and I got to work trying to help the mother finish giving birth. It took a few hours, but eventually everything ended up in the appropriate place and the attending women were able to cut the baby’s cord. Elizabeth and I made our way back up the slippery hill in the growing darkness and shared the good news with all the people gathered in the village. And in every village on the way home; all the women would come running out to meet us and ask about their friend and we were so relieved to tell them that everything was fine. We had just passed through the last village before our own and were looking forward to showers and supper when we heard the sound of a man’s voice shouting in the distance: “She’s dead! She’s dead!” All the villages between us and him took up the cry, passing along the news in the Pal version of instant messaging. We stood on the dark trail in shock, all the relief and lightheartedness replaced by heaviness. That was two days ago. Today I went to check on the sick baby I saw on Christmas Day, and I fear the same fate for him. His mother can do nothing for him but hold him night and day as he moans and draws wheezing breaths. I asked if he was still coughing, and they said, “He starts to, but then the cough just stays in his stomach.” After a few minutes I found out what they meant. His wheezing would build up to where he had to cough, but after the first feeble sputter his little face would wince in pain and he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to cough again and would just go back to wheezing. His strong cries from two days ago when he was scared by me taking his temperature were replaced by a high-pitched whine as he stared up at the roof and remained totally unaware of me. His grandmother held him for a while so that his mom could get him something to drink. The grandma started to weep as she held him and told him that she was afraid he would die. Pal babies don’t wear diapers, so parents usually move the baby off their laps and start to yell for someone to bring a rag when the baby poops, but this grandma was so concerned for her sick grandson that she just continued to cradle him and let his diarrhea pool in her lap rather than cause him more pain by disturbing him. Meanwhile his mother was chewing on sugar cane pulp and spitting the juice into a dish, then she held him again and spoon fed him the sugar juice, hoping to bring some life back to his listless little body. ******************************* I wrote that last night before bed. This morning we found out that he didn’t live through the night. Please pray for the Pal people who are living and dying apart from God. Pray that God will work good out of these tragedies by preparing the hearts of an entire language group who are ripe with grief and unanswered questions, and that the preaching of the gospel will bring in a huge harvest of them. As you celebrate the start of the new year, pray that the new year will give you Pal brothers and sisters in Christ. Maggie