Cape Town, India, and otherwise...

Well, it's been just over a month since we left the ship and we are now in Lonavala, India, which is a two hour drive (or three hours by train) south east of Mumbai. We've been to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa since we left and each country has been amazing!! God has really blessed us with the ability to see and experience some amazing things on this trip! We've seen tons of cool animals, including elephants, hippos, crocs, impala, lions, cheetahs, leopards, antelopes, wildabeasts, and countless different types of birds. It was awesome to see the variety in God's creation!

We spent a week in Cape Town and it was awesome! We had a nice little time share to stay in and rented a car and we made full use of both of them. We drove through the countryside and visited an old friend of Phil and Ali's. We saw the sights of the Cape Town harbour, toured the world cup stadium, visited the cell Nelson Mandela stayed in at Robben Island, hiked Table Mountain, rode horses through a winery, drove down to the Cape of Good Hope and the southernmost tip of Africa, and managed to have a night out on the town with dinner and a movie! It was a great week!

The first part of the trip was pretty awesome and tourist-y, however, India has been a whole new beast. We are working at a YWAM base for the first two weeks of our three week stint and it has been challenging. We've seen some incredible scenery and also experienced some of the brutal realities of day to day life here. A couple of the guys from the base took us out to the top of a mountain that they go to on weekends and let us look out over an amzing tropical valley that had waterfalls spilling over the edges of cliffs and rivers snaking their through the valley floor. It was gorgeous. We also went to a local swimming spot that people come as far away as Mumbai to swim in because it's the only spot you can swim. While we are there we were hit with the reality that not everyone there can swim and if you can't you can get stuck under a grate that sticks out of the water. A boy, who couldn't have been much older than me, learned this the hard way and was being carried away while we walked up to the lake. His body was limp as they tried to rush him to a hospital. Chances are he didn't make it, as the hospital is over a half hour away. We've come across countless beggars, some old and some who look only four or five years old. It tears at your heart to see the way that some people have to live.

All in all, it has been an amazing time so far and we still have to see the Taj Mahal, take two 24-hour train rides, spend three days in Mumbai, and then head to China and Thailand!! After that, I'm sure there will be some much needed rest coming at home! We can't wait to see everyone!

More updates coming! (Sorry we haven't got any pictures up! I'll try to get some up this week!!)

TRAVELING!!

Well, we have been in Zimbabwe for 48 hours and so for we have seen Victoria Falls, went whitewater rafting on the Zambezi river, walked with lions, and rode elephants!! Not bad!

I don't have a lot of time so this will be short. Our time traveling has been amazing! It's been awesome to see how God has blessed us with what we are able to see. It is truly humbling to see some of God's glory and creativity in one place. The thought that keeps running through my mind is that I don't deserve the life that I have been given to live. The last year has been far and away one of the best of my life.

Next, we are headed to Botswana for a few days at a swanky lodge where we are doing a couple game drives and then into Zambia for a few days before we head into South Africa! Right now, our life is awesome!

If you want to keep up with what we are doing more frequently check out Ali's blog (one half of the couple we are traveling with) at alirae.net/blog She will keep hers more updated than ours! Much love from Africa!!

There and back again...

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

This is the first line of the book, The Hobbit, and has little or nothing to do with the rest of this post, but because I had already titled the blog before starting I needed some sort of segue and this was all I could manage. Done.

On June 25th, Julle and I embarked on a whirlwind adventure back to the mystical land of Canada where it's cold and people are pale. It was a very quick trip, but it was wonderful. We got to see family and friends and spent most of our time borrowing people's cars to do so (Thanks again!!).

We got a lot of questions about our future plans and I am proud to say that we were pretty much unable to answer any of them! We are going traveling, returning home in late October, and then we are..... who knows?

We aren't sure what we want to do yet because we haven't been able to reconcile what we've seen and experienced in Africa with how we live in Canada. It was incredible culture shock when we got back home and it was tough to not make judgements on the culture and world that we grew up in. Therefore, we decided not to make any hasty decisions and though it would be best to simply prepare ourselves for our next adventure and see if God nudges us in any certain direction first.

Who knows what the future will hold? The different possibilities are endless. The one thing that I do know is that through my entire life God has been faithful to me. And, since he doesn't change, we can have the faith to know that he will always be faithful to us, regardless of where we end up. I know that he holds the future in his hands and that he is a loving Father and in that truth.... I can rest.

Mighty Ships!

This week watch out for us on Mighty Ships, a great show on Discovery Channel. Our ship will be featured and hopefully Julle and I will make an appearance! The episode airs on Wednesday June 23rd at 5pm and then again at 10pm. Make sure you catch it if you can. If you miss it, you'll be able to catch it on Thursday at 11am. No one on the ship has seen it, so let me know how it goes!

Also, we are coming home and will be getting into YVR at 1440 this coming Saturday (the 26th)!! We will be home for a week and a half and will be speaking at both Ladner Baptist (in Delta on the 27th) and Immanuel Fellowship (in Abbotsford on July 4th). We hope to see everyone before we come back to Africa and then on to our travels! If we don't get to see you then, we will be home again at the end of October! We hope to see you soon!!

Aissa

NOTE: Some of the pictures shown below are medically graphic and are not suitable for kids. I'm not showing these for shock value, only to show that God is good and he provides for all his children.

A lot of what I know about Aissa is secondhand and, while I spent lots of time playing with her, I am certainly not one of the most qualified people to tell her story. But, here goes...

Sarah was working with an NGO (non-governmental organization) in Cameroon when she came across Aissa. She found her skeletal, unable to walk or feed herself, on the doorstep of the orphanage with a dirty cloth covering half of her face. It covered a gaping hole where Noma had been ravaging her face. Noma is a disease that is caused by malnutrition, eats away at the face and cheek tissue, and is fatal in 90% of cases.

She was hospitalized but the family was going to return home with her after four days because they could not pay for the medical bill. Her bill was picked up by an NGO and she nursed back to a healthy weight.

Her photos were sent to Mercy Ships and she got the news that she would be coming to receive the plastic surgery that would make her look like all the other kids. Another NGO paid for her flight and she got on a plane to Togo.

This little girl who almost died, just one year ago, had now been placed into the hands of specialists that were able to give her back her face. As she recovers in the wards she is loved by nurse and translators. I got to spend some time with her on the wards as she would always help me put supplies onto the shelves together. She loved to be a part of what we were doing, no matter what it was.

She's now gone to the hospitality center (which is where they go when they don't need to be in the ward anymore but still need to come back for dressing changes. She'll be back Monday for her last dressing change and then she'll go home. She'll go back to her village and show off her new, beautiful, smiling face.

Below are the pictures of how God took her from certain death to a chance at a real life.

4 days after she was found.

Hanging out with Sarah in Cameroon. She is finally healthy and will smile.

Smiling at the hospital in Cameroon

The team of surgeons works on giving Aissa a new face.

Aissa and one of the OR nurses

Aissa sees herself in a mirror after surgery

After her surgery and skin graft. There is still much more healing to go, but she has got a great start.

Aissa and Sarah share a moment in the ward

Aissa now has hope for a bright future. God has given his beautiful girl a new beautiful face.

A Tale of Two sons

Over the past two-three months we've been caring for two tiny little boys Marius(right and top) and Obrien(left) who both have bilateral cleft lips and palates. Both when they came were severely malnourished despite the best efforts on their mothers parts. Both of their mothers left their villages to seek help for their beautiful little sons. Both arrived with lung infection from not being able to feed well due to their clefts.                                 

The boys were started on the infant feeding program  and began gaining weight. Little Obrien's lungs were not strong enough though and he needed to be put on CPAP to help him along and just before he needed to be intubated God performed a miracle and he went back to breathing fine with just a sniff of oxygen. 

Marius gained enough weight and was able to have his first surgery to correct his bilateral cleft lip. During surgery though he went into broncho spasm and needed to stay intubated. He came back to the ICU and stayed for a week. He ended up having a trache put in and getting well enough to have it removed. 

This past week both little boys went home, but to very different homes. Marius has gotten well enough and has continued to gain weight and so his mom took him home to continue to fatten him up so he can come back for his palate repair. Obrien has gone home to be with his heavenly father. He struggled through another month after his miracle, but his lungs weren't strong enough and it put too much strain on his heart till it couldn't continue to beat. He slipped away peacefully in his mothers loving arms to be received by his father for eternity.

I cannot fathom the will or mind of God. At first I wondered does this make Obrien's miracle pointless all for nothing, God saved him but then he still died.  Or maybe mom needed to spend a little more time here on the ship learning of God's love for her and her baby, so God demonstrated his love for her by saving her precious little boy's life so they could spend one more month together. I cannot answer these questions, but I'm glad that little Obrien no longer needs to suffer in this world, but can be wrapped in his Daddy's loving arms for eternity. And maybe his mom will be to. I know seeds have been planted whether they have taken root and grown i don't but please pray that they do. 

Julle

Miracle in ICU!!!

Wow So we had a miracle in the ICU the other night and instead of trying to put it in words for myself, one of my friends and colleagues has beautiful words already to share this amazing story.  Enjoy. Just click the link below.

http://alirae.net/blog/archives/376-sparrow-baby.html