Firestone Surgeries.

Yesterday I drove seven kids from three different orphanages, all with varying types of hernias, up to Firestone Hospital. There is a group of American surgeons there this week with Children's Surgery Intl (CSI). They are primarily doing facial and reconstructive surgeries, however they brought one general surgeon to help with hernia repairs. I met some of the nurses working with CSI last Thursday and introduced them to a couple of the orphanages we work with here. Saturday night I received a phone call from one of the nurses telling me that they only had 13 hernia repair spots left and there were over 100 people spending the night in hopes to fill those spots. They were overwhelmed at the response and need for these surgeries. All my kids had already been screened by the primary team, but the surgeon had not seen them yet, and nothing was set. I was told to return on Sunday without much hope of any of my kids getting the surgeries that they need.

(Kebbeh, Fumbeh, Jeremiah, Mustaphe, Joshua and Miracle-- Ice cream was one of the new experiences for these kids on the journey to the hospital, other things they enjoyed for the first time included an elevator and flushing toilets!)

This is Liberia, and nothing went as planned as I attempted to pick up the kids and make the hour drive to Firestone. When we finally got on the road Elena and I were frustrated and wondered if it was even worth going. I asked one of the kids to pray and as Jeremiah's prayer floated up from the backseat, I could feel the mood in the car change. I started getting excited and had a feeling we were going to be witnessing a miracle (because that is what it was going to be if any of my kids were actually going to have surgery this week). We were over an hour late arriving and as I drove up to the hospital, I passed through a crowd of mothers and children waiting to be seen. We were greeted at the door by the screening team and were told there are only nine spots left. Then I realized, as we were escorted straight back to see the surgeon, they were waiting for us!

Dr Steve examined the children one by one and in the end three of the seven were selected to have surgery this week. (We actually ended up taking three of the last five surgery spots!) The other four received the promise of being at the top of the list for surgery when the CSI team returns in the fall. Amazing!

I just returned from seeing Jeremiah, Joshua and Fumbeh off on the bus to Firestone. They were excited for the adventure of it and a bit scared (a few tears even snuck out from Jeremiah, my constant smiler). Their surgeries are scheduled for tomorrow and I will pick them up at the hospital on Wednesday. These are relatively routine surgeries and a quick recovery is expected, but please join me in praying for these boys this week-- they are in strange surroundings, seperated from the families that they know and facing the unknown discomfort of surgery. But, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to aknowledge God's hand in making a way for them to have these surgeries this week. (And a big Thank You to the CSI team too.)