Nine days ago, Heidi and I brought a little girl and her family out to town so that the girl could have surgery to repair a ruptured eardrum that hasn’t healed naturally. We were hoping that the surgery would take place soon after we arrived, but the doctor had to postpone it, so it didn’t happen until last Friday.
While we were waiting to have our patient admitted, we visited a lady who our helicopter pilot evacuated from the village a week before. She had hurt her leg, but we didn’t know how badly. She actually broke both of her lower leg bones and needs surgery. Arranging for a major surgery here is quite a process and so she has been waiting for two weeks and still hasn’t had her surgery. She is bored to death. So, the next time we visited, along with some things the patient needed, Heidi brought her a set of UNO cards. The ward she is in has about 50 beds packed into it, so there are many bored people. Within seconds, Heidi had a crowd around her as she explained the game.
This is a picture of Lorraine with her baby cousin, taken a few days after her surgery. She didn’t look nearly so happy right after her surgery, but she has that behind her now. Please pray that the operation will heal well, and that she won’t have any further complications.
Heidi and I have been using our extra days in town to work on the back translation of the book of Romans. That is the English version of the Isnag version that the translation consultant uses to check our work. Writing the back translation is tedious work and Heidi is putting in lots of hours. She hopes to have it done before we return to the village in two days. She is in the middle of chapter 10, so it is going to be a close race.
Thank you for your prayers! God bless, Jonathan and Heidi