Parenthood Overseas…Is It Really All That Different?

For the last couple of days, we have been receiving emails asking for urgent prayer for a family that just arrived to Kenya to serve through the same post-residency organization that we will be going with.  They have three boys and one girl, the youngest.  This little girl, Hannah, had been vomiting and losing weight for a few days despite standard treatments.  She suddenly became so weak that she no longer had pulses, and her dad had to do CPR on her and intubate her himself; imagine the terror.  They then discovered a brain tumor but, miraculously, there was a neurosurgeon in the hospital at that time, who performed surgery yesterday to extract the tumor.  This morning I awoke to a simple email saying that Hannah is now with her Savior.

My heart broke.  I can’t help but cry for this family who has been in Kenya for less than two months, giving up their lives to serve the Lord in the way that He called them to.  

Perhaps it is the child inside me that is making me more sensitive to their situation, knowing that we are not only affecting our own lives by moving to Nepal but the life of this little one as well.  We have felt at peace about this: if the Lord has called us so clearly, then we feel He has called our children as well.  But these kinds of events always bring it to heart that being a parent can mean real heartbreak, perhaps even more so when not in the comforts of our home country.

But Hannah got spectacular treatment: intubation, pressors, cut down lines, central line, CT scan, even neurosurgery!  Would her life have been any different in the United States?  Her progress was rapid and unexpected.  Perhaps it would have only been different because her parents would have ignored God’s calling and Satan would not have attacked so fiercely.  

We will soon find out if our baby is a boy or girl, which I think will make its life even more real to us.  So far, the only current evidence that it is alive is my pouching stomach and occasionally listening to a distant heartbeat.  We know many of you have concerns over us taking a baby to a place like Nepal, but we hope that you will join us in trusting the Lord for His plans and believing that He is good.  And please join us in prayer for Hannah’s grieving family.

~~~~~~

After hearing about a series of major losses, ending with the news that all of his children had been killed, this is how Job responded in Job 1.20-22:

"Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped.  He said,          
        'Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

         And naked I shall return there.

         The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

         May the name of the Lord be praised!'

Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God."