“Dear Jesus, Please Help Mommy Eat Food!” More Tales from the Mountaintops and Valleys Below

Again, we returned to the village. Christmas was now approaching. Kunti left to spend it with family in Kathmandu. Our dear British friend Molly Heath came to spend Christmas with us. She was a great help and joy. It was a wonderful time as we hung Christmas cards on a stretch of string across the kitchen. As our Tharu friends came in and asked about this, we were discuss the birth of Jesus and how God chose to send His Son to earth to share His love and a way to receive forgiveness for all the wrongs we’ve done.

But then, “Christmas morning Bill took one of Kissan’s sisters, Hatani, to the hospital. We feared for her life. She had a huge abscess in her stomach that was out of control. At the hospital, they drained it and dressed it and we all returned home. For the next week I gave her daily penicillin shots and changed the dressings. The Lord truly healed it fast. We told them that Jesus did it.”

After Molly left, I wrote, “I am enjoying serving people, writing letters and being a mommy.” During this time I began a two day fast. Jon asked to pray at breakfast and all he said was, “Dear Jesus, please help mommy eat food!” The two day fast opened my heart to hear Him and not fear for the future, and to leave the rest to Him. Little did I know how much I would need that assurance into our future years.

After what we thought would be a short trip to Kathmandu, we finally made it back to the village by the end of February.  Bill had his wisdom teeth out and developed a bad infection…another long story of delays and God’s goodness.

When we arrived, we found that our landlord, whose house was about 15 feet in front of ours, had taken a second, younger wife. After ten kids with his first wife, he wanted a second. They both lived in the same small house. Tharu women are not shy, and the contention and arguing were daily and loud. Months later our landlord moved his new wife to her own house in a village across the river.

Even though we learned that a second wife wasn’t unusual, I found my heart in tears of compassion for them, longing for them to know the love and fulfillment of Jesus. It was joy to us to one day hear them singing songs about Jesus. Kunti was teaching them all she knew about Him.

For those of you who like floor plans, here’s what our house was like from our collected memories. It's not correct dimensions, but the size of the house was about 16 x 20 feet (about 320 square feet for each floor), so you'll have to use your imagination to see how it really all fit!

Downstairs

Upstairs

On another note, Bill and I had wanted a large family, like our Tharu friends had, but during the next year I had several miscarriages. This was hard physically and emotionally as we waited for Father to reveal His plan.

Meanwhile, we enjoyed our two energetic kids. Our village backyard was fenced in so the kids had a measure of protection from hurting themselves. Of course that didn’t stop the elephants from munching on the other side of the fence and providing entertainment for the kids.

When Does God Heal? Jenny’s Subdural Hematoma and Healings in the Lives of our Village Friends

After Bill’s parents left, we went back to the village where much medical work was waiting. Kunti, the dear young lady who worked for us, also moved in with us. She was such a gift from Father’s heart to us. She served with cheerfulness and a willing heart.

From my journal: “The mountains are beautiful. The work is mountainous.” Bill continued working daily with Kissan and a new friend and worker named Hatana. He was working to understand the grammar of the Tharu language. I continued with the literacy work and analyzing the phonology of the language.

With our health challenges, the Lord continued to encourage us to trust Him. Then we began to see healings as we prayed for village people who came for help. One man named Sahu came with a dislocated hip that the Lord put back in place when we prayed. One time a shot of penicillin, and prayer, “cured” an older person with a severe case of bronchitis. Another time two aspirin, and prayer, would “cure” a broken finger.

We never understood the why of when God heals and when he withholds healing. We never knew what to expect, only to pray when He brought us into the lives of specific people who came to us for help. One time God didn’t heal was for a woman who had become blind. Our hearts were sad, but we left her in His hands.

While He was healing many in the village, one day “Jenny fell off a ladder and hurt her head and stomach. She seemed OK, but last night she vomited and today she won’t wake up. There’s nothing worse than holding a sick child in your arms and not being able to do anything."

We packed up and were getting ready to take her to Kathmandu for medical help, hoping for a commercial flight to be available. There were only two flights a week to our airstrip in Bharatpur. From my diary:

During our packing, Bill decided to pray for Jenny. He went to her crib and prayed, rebuking the illness in Jesus’ Name. When he stepped back, he accidentally stepped on Jonathan’s hand who was sitting at the doorway watching all this. When Jonathan let out a cry, Jenny opened her eyes and woke up. This was God’s doing and to his glory. Jesus made her well in an instant.

We are still watching her closely. We believe God wants us here and He wants her well. It’s the first time Jenny’s been sick enough for me to be truly concerned for her life, and to ask if I’m willing for any of us to be sacrificed for our Tharus, that they might know Him.

When we later returned to Kathmandu and she was examined by a doctor, we were told that she must have had a subdural hematoma (blood clot on the brain) and that only God could have touched and healed that there in the village. Another doctor told us the same thing and we gave thanks for God’s love-care for Jenny and us.

While we were in Kathamandu, Jenny and Jonathan both had good friends when in Kathmandu, especially from the Kotapish family. Here’s a picture of Jenny with Glenn Kotapish playing a game of “roll the onions.”

And here’s a couple of Jonathan with good friend Dawn Kotapish, climbing the Mt. Everest of pillows.

Jenny Turns One, Bill's Parents' Visit Us, Mt. Everest, and Our Village: MoreTales from the Mountaintops and Valleys Below Continued

This next half year was full of lots of good things and better health.

During this summer, Jenny began to sleep for more than a few hours and once she even slept the night! We were so blessed. Here's a picture of Jenny at 13 months old trying to comb her curly blond hair! She's standing in the bedroom of our home in Kathmandu.

After a summer in Kathmandu, doing language analysis work with Kissan and another Tharu friend named Hatana, we again planned to return to the village in September. We were also excited because Bill's parents were coming to visit and wanted to come to the village too. Bill's folks arrived October 13th, four days early--their telegram telling us of the date change never arrived. But how glad we were to see them and be together. "Bill's mom is so good with Jon and Jenny and I am learning from her example."

Before taking them to the village, we took them in our small JAARS plane for a tour of the Himalayas, to see Mt. Everest up front and real. Very impressive. That's Bill's dad on the right sitting next to pilot Wayne Aeschliman.

As soon as we returned to the village, the medical work did too. With Bill's parents help with the children, I was able to complete 24 literacy primer lessons and set out to test these. You can see me here working with two of the girls from the village.

Up until now, most of these dear people, especially women, didn't know how to read at all. We brought National Geographic magazines for them to see but they didn't know how to hold them or even look at pictures. We had to start from scratch in basic literacy before they were ready for primer lessons. So after laying a basic foundation, I began using the materials. The people were very enthusiastic about seeing their own language written down. I'll photocopy one of the first stories in the primer here. The word at the top is kai, meaning "eat": the story is about how the jackal is eating the pheasant.

A highlight of this time was celebrating Jenny's first birthday with Dad and Mom and our village family. We tried making ice cream to serve Kissan and his whole family, including Kissan's mom and dad (who was in his 80's--quite old for their normal lifespan). In the photo I took, below, you can see Jenny on Grandma Leal's lap. Look at those blond curls (she still has all the curls, but left the blond behind)! That's our village backyard we're in, with back door behind us all.

We returned to Kathmandu in mid November after a great time in the village. During the next few months we also began to meet for fellowship with several other Wycliffe friends, some British colleagues, and two Catholic Jesuit priests. We all hungered to know Him more and spent time worshiping together. It was also a time I began rereading Madame Guyon's works, seeing how completely she rested in every adverse circumstance. "Quiet acceptance, meeting God in the inner man while the world around rumbles."

The Village Doctor Gets Malaria with 106 Fever: More Tales from the Mountaintops and Valleys Below

One of my jobs was to be the local village "doctor." I was running a flourishing medical practice (unpaid) among our village friends, and others came from surrounding villages too. In Jungle Camp we had received basic training in various health problems, and we had several medical manuals, including the Merck Manual. But the reality was greater than we knew. We treated open wounds, pneumonia, gave shots of all kinds (I even had to give Jonathan shots when he got a high fever and was quite sick with bronchitis). But the hardest one I couldn't treat was when a teenage boy fell off the top edge of a fence and tore open all the skin in his private parts. We sent him to the small hospital in Bharatpur to get stitches. We sent other severe cases like this there too, though we were the follow-up team, changing dressings, providing shots and medicine and check-ups.

Those we helped would bring food in return, or invited us to eat with them, always yummy, but very spicy. Besides this, we often had visits from our Wycliffe colleagues. This time down Ron and Gail came with their boys, went swimming with us in the Rapti River and took elephant rides. Probably swimming in our local river where the cows drank and bathed was not the best, in retrospect.

After a month in the village, we again faced medical challenges. I came down with a very high fever. Bill made contact with Kathmandu and arranged for an emergency flight, though they were waiting on a broken part for the plane so we had to wait an extra day. According to my journal, 

We took off from our village for the airstrip in a dilapidated jeep with no roof but a piece of plastic that Bill put above us to protect us from the rain. We arrived at the appointed time of 8;30, but no plane. Finally at 9;30 Bob came and landed and "Praise God" were our first words! I was quite ill by this time. Next to the plane were two of our amazing JAARS pilots who flew our teams to and from our villages.

SIL pilots beside one of the two JAARS planes at the airport in Kathmandu.

By the time we landed in Kathmandu, I was rushed to the hospital where tests were begun. Our friends Ron and Gail took our kids for us. Continuing from my journal,

Saturday evening I started shaking with chills and my fever kept going up. The thermometer was kept on the small table next to the bed. My fever peaked near 106 degrees. Before that I thought 103 was high! At first they thought it was a severe bladder infection, but the chills and fevers came every 18 hours, so then they knew it was probably malaria and began treatment. Bill was exhausted too. They kept the fever down with medication. "May 25, 1073: Isaiah 48:9-13: I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction...."

However, I must have been allergic to the morphine they gave me. When it was time to sleep, I began seeing nonstop pictures. That morning I had told the doctor I saw a yellow duck with a tuxedo walk across the ceiling. He laughed. But then my private cinema began and hallucinations lasted until 4:30 in the morning when the doctor prescribed something to stop them. Bill called our friend Gail to come sit with me as he was so tired too. Gail came and we began rejoicing together and praying for others. And then sleep came."

It was another mercy of God to hold the high fever until we reached Kathmandu. The hallucinations continued to come on and off for many days. Really strange and some scary ones. (I don't know why anyone wants to try drugs). One time, in one corner of my hospital room, there was a large flower pot that kept changing different kinds of flowers. Once a nurse came in and her earrings had live birds flapping their wings and chirping. When I hit rock bottom thinking they would never stop, and with complete weakness, I felt myself slipping and could do nothing but trust my Shepherd and Lord. He told me not be afraid, I would be alright. Soon I received an injection and had the best night's sleep in a week.

Then the doctors found I also had several kinds of worms and had to treat those too. They found other things in my blood they also treated. Carl and Sharon Kotapish came by and visited too. How grateful we are for the family of God He put around us here and now."

After several weeks I regained strength. And we got some good news about Jonathan. He had been treated for over a year now for tuberculosis and the new X-rays made it possible to finally declare him cured! We had much to rejoice over in God's goodness and healing. We had a ceremony of flushing down the toilet the remaining pills. 

Jonathan with friends in the village