Most often when we see patients, especially national patients, we don’t usually get to hear, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story”…how things turned out for them. For one reason or another, they don’t follow up with our clinic.
And for the most part, I am okay with that. But there are certain patients, certain stories, that just stick with me. To read the incredible story of a baby in status epilepticus (non-stop seizures) read the “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has Thou ordained strength”. Just one incredible event! But since then, I’ve heard nothing about that baby. I guess it’s been in mind because I’ve retold that story many times.
For the few months prior to coming back to PNG, this particular patient kept coming to mind and I’d wonder whether he was still alive, whether he still lived close to our center, whether he still had seizures. I figured I would never know. But then I was on my way back and I thought, “Maybe.”
Our first cultural event in our Culture and Language Acquisition class was a trip across the road to Nukamp. When I was here before it was just 2-3 transient families. Now it is has grown! I doubted the young family still lived there and put off asking until we were ready to leave. Just before stepping out of the house, I braved the question. “Do you remember a little baby with shaking sickness that came to our clinic about 4-5 years ago? Does his family still live here?” I didn’t have names to ask about, I only had an incredible story of God’s power. After a few seconds of discussing it, they knew right away who I was talking about! They said that his family still lives there and that he is healthy and strong, no seizures since that time! But then the sweetest miracle of all…they pointed to a little boy in a dark blue hoody, sitting on the steps of the next house over and told me, “That is him. That is Winsor. He is the baby you treated.” Poor Winsor had no idea why this crazy white woman was so happy to see him or why she was starting to cry looking at him! But here he was–whole, healthy, growing!
Since coming back here to PNG, God has given me gift after gift after gift. But THIS…THIS was one of the best!!! He gave me “the rest of the story”.