Youth on a mission part 4; Gone, Back, and Gone Again

Well despite my best efforts, I encountered a sufficient number of obstacles to prevent this blog from going up Sunday night. The last straw was the power failure at 6pm that made all computing and internet availability impossible. I mentioned that we have no power between midnight and 7am everyday, but this is the first time it has gone off at pm. Since it is already dark then it is very difficult to do a lot without a flashlight or candle. Buying a large plug-in battery or two has moved up to the top of my to-do list.

The power failure is one of a large number of difficulties which, taken separately, would not be a huge problem, but coming en masse, as they have, has really overwhelmed us at this point. I know that all of this will pass, as I recount them here I do not want anyone to think we are beaten, but we are really on the ropes at this time. (I like the boxing image because I can picture a boxing match where an opponent continually lands punch after punch, seemingly from nowhere, that you feel completely unable to anticipate or defend against.)

Sadly, the most devastating attacks remain in the realm of our childrens health. We cannot seem to keep either of them disease free for more than two days at a time. David is currently covered head to toe with a rash of red spots that may be roseola or measles, and Oren in running a fever of 102.6) Oren just started getting sick this afternoon.

The timing is particularly bad as our family is scheduled to go upcountry today (Monday) for 4 days to lead a retreat with our partners. Both Rebecca and I have extensive responsibilities on it and we are even bringing a babysitter. With both boys so sick it is likely that I will be going up without the rest of the family to do all of Rebecca’s presentations and my own. That would be extremely hard on both of us, Rebecca without me to help with the kids, and me without her to lead worship and do several presentations, both spiritual, worship leading, and also instructional, all by myself.

Cancelling is a temptation, but with 27 people coming from all over two countries, it would be very difficult to stop the momentum at this point. Prayers for whatever we end up doing would be greatly appreciated.

By way of health problems I will say that Oren is of greater concern at this point because he has had the most number of inexplicable and unusual symptoms. We, on the advice of a doctor have ceased to give him his antimalarials as he has had some strange behavior that is likely related to the psychological side affects that one is supposed to be on the lookout for when taking larium. He has been notably depressed and sometimes wakes from sleep in a bizarre semi-conscious state, very dizzy and babbling nonsense. The problem with taking him off the antimalarials is that it now exposes him to the risk of getting malaria, which is a serious concern around here. We do have the treatment on hand, but we really do not want to expose him to another risk factor.

I said in last weeks blog that this series of challenges related to our children’s health is taking on the dimensions of a spiritual attack and Rebecca and I had to confess that we are at this point overwhelmed. It has turned us back to a reliance on God’s plan as we have completely exhausted our own physical and emotional resources.


I wanted to get as much of the bad news out of the way as possible, as that is weighing heaviest on my mind, before reporting on the more encouraging things in the past week. Fortunately the week was not without its rewards.
This was the last week of the three week mission trip of Bridget, Alecia, and Justin, our three youth from our home church. It was not quite as full as the first two, but they did continue to share testimonies at college campuses in Bujumbura and offer computer training to students who were interested. The testimonies and computer training were very well received by the students, and it was good to make such a solid connection with our partner Zenon, who is general secretary of the Union Groupe Biblique (Intervarsity) here.

On their last night we had supper with Onesphore and his family, then on Friday during the day Jean Claude and Zenon dropped by to say goodbye. Marcelline also said a tearful goodbye. Zenon had bought them all a gift as well. It was an outfit for each one of them (see photo below.) They looked great in them and were excited about wearing them at church in Poughkeepsie on Sunday when they got back.

I took them to the airport on Friday about 6pm. We all went, said goodbye and watched them go through the security gate into customs, then we went home. The house felt empty and we were very glad for their visit and encouraged by them, but we were also aware of the amount of work piled up for the retreat. We went home and put the kids to bed and began getting to work on the retreat.

At about 11pm we got a call on my cell. It was Alecia at the airport saying the flight had been cancelled! They had waited for an hour on the plane while they tried to fix a problem with the airconditioning to no avail. They cancelled the flight and were going to put everyone in hotels. I told Alecia I would pick them up and did so. We got back home about midnight, just after the power went out which meant we could not email to tell their families they would be late. (Fortunately we were able to make a long distance call on my cell to Bridget’s mom to tell her.)

We spent a good part of Saturday at the Brussels airlines office trying to get them on the next flight. There was a plane on Saturday that was supposed to go to Kigali but rerouted to pick up about 50 people from Bujumbura. It was meant to be only people from business class but we pleaded our friends case as pathetically as we could. Long story short, they were on the plane that night and at this writing are back in New York.

Sunday we spent as much time as possible after church on the retreat but we very stymied by the power failure at 6pm that prevented us from printing any of our materials. The children’s illnesses also prevented us from getting much work done.

Epilogue

It is now Monday morning, the power never came on, we have nothing printed, tons to do and are leaving to lead the retreat in 2 hours and both kids are quite sick. Rebecca is at the doctor and I am at the office trying to change money and print documents. It is now a fiasco completely beyond our control, we will really need the power of the Holy Spirit to get us through the next 4 days upcountry.

Prayers Please!