Update from Pattie...

I got an email from Pattie the other day.

Seeing that thing in my inbox did terrible things to my stomach. I was so afraid she was going to tell me about one of our friends dying or something.

Praise God, she didn’t.

Let me glean from her two emails here, to give you an update.

To go back, it looks like the monyemiji came down and begged Steve to get the meds sent out a bit ago, because so many kids were dying. That’s a pretty big move. Good on you, monyemiji folk.

Franco was sick, but Pattie started treating him with the new medicine and he looks like he’ll be fine. Paula even carried him most of the way down to church Sunday, Pattie says, because they asked him and he said he wanted to go. She said it’s been so wonderful to see how Abuba is taking to heart our lessons on the importance and method of getting a fever down. I think maybe when our neighbors saw Pattie and Kim soaking me down with our precious little water when I was sick, that did something in their minds. Pattie says Abuba even helped her explain to other people why it was important and how to do it. I think Pattie was really encouraged.

One of our friend’s kids, Monday, was really sick. (There’s a picture of Monday somewhere on here.) I’m not even sure how to explain this story, because even Pattie was having a hard time telling it. Here’s the thing: Sometimes, the Lopit declare someone dead before they’re actually dead. Which leads to confusion, when people are… resurrected. They, umm… come back to life. Anyway, this seems to be the case with Monday. Pattie woke up to the women wailing in mourning and telling her Monday died, but then Monday was really just sick. And now she’s in the clinic, and it sounds like she’s getting better.

Pattie said she was “mad enough to spit nails” (I think that means really mad) when she heard from our neighbor that, though they just got a whole slew of meds on that plane HK sent up, the clinic had sent her away, saying there was no more medicine. Not yet sure if that’s really the case—people have a habit of saying that when they’re lying about having been to the clinic. We’ll see what good ol’ Pattie says in her next email.

I miss Pattie. :(