Morning Mourning…

This morning’s calm was interrupted by a group of women wailing. My heart immediately sunk to hear the sound.

My entire body seizes up to that sound, and we all rush to the fence to ask our neighbors what has happened. We had a child die two houses up from us earlier in the week and other children have also died recently, so we know the sound of mourning well. I cringed to think that we’d lost another little one.

I was relieved to find it was just relatives who’d come late from Torit to express their grieve and give condolences, but I’m afraid of when we’ll hear the next wails.

This week has been a bit like that—uneasy. Our good friend Mary’s daughter, Night, was really sick, and we were afraid we were going to lose her. Mary even came to church Sunday and asked the congregation to pray. She is the one who lost a boy to malaria this time last year, so you can imagine our fear—only a shadow of hers. It was sad to see Night’s normally smiling face so troubled as she slept and her body so listless.

I’m not sure news of this year’s huge meningitis outbreak has surfaced in the States, but I read about AIMAIR pilots bringing medicine to villages and administering vaccinations right there on the airstrip, they were so desperate. I’m always afraid of finding a case here—it’s yet to reach us.

Anyway, we sat with them a lot and prayed, and pumped her full of rehydration salts, and she seems to be going better now, praise God. But please just pray for the community here, as 9 out of 10 tests at the clinic are positive for malaria—and that’s only the people who actually go there—and there is something else going around.