Heinrich and Doris have been concerned for quite a while about their friend’s son. The friend is James, one of the chiefs, and his little boy has been sick for a while, and they’ve been unable to get him better. So they decided the other day to get him out of Lopit and to Nairobi, where he could get real medical attention. We have a lot of peoples’ generosity to thank for that, I’m sure.
James had never been out of Sudan before, so H and D had the forethought to give him important lessons, like how to use a toilet and take a shower. They gave him a toothbrush, among other things, and sent him off on a plane Wednesday morning with assurances from the doctors that they’d be able to treat the boy and would return him to Lopit feeling much better after only some simple treatment.
Word came through two days ago that they’d been mistaken. They found a soccer ball-sized tumor in the boy’s stomach and said it’d already destroyed a lot of organs. James begged them to take the boy to Germany, to treat him with chemo. The doctor said it was too late. James, who we’d hoped would be led to Christ through this, asked why we couldn’t just pray to Hollum (God) and He’d heal him.
The boy died late last night in the hospital. My heart aches for James, in Nairobi now but flying back as soon as possible with the boy’s body. Lopit tradition has the family surrounded immediately by the entire village, and provides a familiar way for them to mourn. The closest James has to anyone there is Daniel, who was able to receive him and—from what I understand?—was with them through it all. And I’m sure there are other DIGUNA folks there coming around James, but how hard…
I know H and D are taking it hard, and it will be hard to come back to Lopit, the harbingers of such bad news. Please pray for this whole situation, that God would work through it.
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