Who is this man Jesus

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Other

Ahmed, 17, had been a believer for six months. He had been wondering how to begin to tell his family and neighbours, and until he felt it was right to do so he was just quietly walking The Way.

One Friday there was a ruckus of excitement and entertainment, which also had a frisson of fear: a woman in the village was possessed by an evil spirit. Through the day the ‘witch doctor’ and mosque leader had both had times of working with her to drive the unclean spirit out but to no effect. As evening approached she was still uncontrollable, violent and deeply disturbed.

As the evening wore on Ahmed became more and more disquieted in his spirit. “I know Jesus is more powerful than this” burned in his chest. Eventually he could bear it no more – something had to be done. He went and got his New Testament (which no-one knew he had) and approached the woman. Taking the book he put it on her chest and said, “In the name of Jesus – leave!” For a moment there was frozen silence and then, in one violent motion, she snatched the New Testament and threw it, sending it sprawling in the dust, pages dishevelled.

Ahmed was a new believer, with just six months of teaching, and now he’s seeing his faith lying in the dust. So what he did next astounds me. He went and got the book, dusted it off, walked back to the woman, and repeated what he had done before. Holding the New Testament to her chest he said, “In the name of Jesus – leave!” This time the lady gave a loud cry and collapsed into unconsciousness. The crowd were at first concerned that she had died but then realised she was breathing and at peace. For the next wee while she stayed unresponsive but then woke up, disoriented and wondering what had happened, but obviously okay.

I first heard about this two weeks after the event. Ahmed’s pastor (an “Imam”) was just bouncing with the news that now there was a community who had seen the power of the Gospel in action, through one of their own, and they were asking, “Who is this man Jesus?”

That question, “Who is this man?” is starting to reverberate round Muslim communities in South Asia. When we first went there 18 years ago we began to hear about isolated “pockets of fire.” Fifteen years later, towards the end of our time, I visited one area twice. The first visit, in 2004, found one family who had faced real persecution for their faith but had stayed faithful. Around them were occasional believers but they were very subdued and I had to be very cautious in conversation as to what I asked, and when I could ask it.

On my second visit in 2007, I brought a colleague with me and I warned him to be circumspect. Therefore, both of us were thrown somewhat to find our first cups of tea were with 25 believers who were busy telling us of their faith; how each month they showed the Jesus film and gave a gospel message to any who wanted to come. We were even invited to preach at the next one, happening the next evening, but had to decline. We met over 80 believers that day, and where there had been caution, now there was courage. Where things had been circumspect, now they were circulating.

Lives and communities transformed. It’s a pretty good start. Over these last 18 years I have seen God in action as His Kingdom is advancing. South Asia has pockets of fire that are starting to coalesce. Now God is moving us to another country where there is a Muslim community in which we can apply the lessons and experience learnt over the last 18 years. This new country (England) in one of the forefronts of Islam and I believe God wants to transform lives and communities there too.

Colin and Christine Edwards have been involved in South Asia since 1988, but are currently transitioning to the UK, where they’ll be involved with crosscultural work with Interserve’s Urban Vision programme.

A Random Encounter

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Community Development

Well, remarkable for me. Lois, Becca and I were taking the long way around back to the US from Asia this past July. The journey is six days by rail from Beijing to Moscow and our overland travel adventure required that I take the twenty minutes stops at major stations, usually around five hours apart, to find food.

Zima represented a particular challenge for me. First of all, I saw a most interesting building beside the tracks as we pulled into the station. I had to have a photo of it. We were also low on our food stocks. Our diet consisted of sausages and bread with the rare cucumber or piece of fruit thrown in. However, I was low on rubles and few people out in Siberia are willing to change dollars for you. But I had read that there are ATMs in the Russian train stations. So I set my goals for the next twenty minutes: dash over to the building and snap a shot, race into the station and see if the rumour of the ATMs was true, and, if so, then capture a meal for our family from the stalls lining the platform. But, I think that God had other plans for me that day.

You can see here the photo of the building that caught my interest. And yes, there is an ATM at the Zima, Siberia station and it does dispense rubles using my bankcard. I was two for two with ten minutes left. Now, over to the kiosks for provisions. “Two sausages,” I said in English pointing to the treasured sustenance with one hand while holding up two fingers with the other. Back in our train cabin I spread our meal out before the adoring faces of my loved ones.

“I did it,” I said to myself walking back into the train corridor to look out upon Zima. But as I gazed upon the field of battle on which I had been so victorious, my eyes fell down upon a bedraggled man in his mid-thirties and what I took to be his young son beside him. The boy’s hands were full. He was clutching two halves of a watermelon. His father was gazing up at me with a beseeching look, that universal expression of piteous appeal beggars use was etched across his face. As he began his spiel I was astounded. I understood him. He was speaking Persian.

It never ceases to amaze me that when I meet people in these exotic places and we begin to speak in a minority language like Persian, they fail to think it strange that a foreigner can speak, with limited capacity in my case, their native tongue. He was a Persian speaking Tajik, a veteran of the Soviet Union’s Afghanistan war, from whence the deployable condition of his life ensued. Did I not have a few rubles to spare? Well, I did. In fact, my pockets were literally brimming with rubles.

I could be magnanimous. Had I not just accomplished a most remarkable feat: providing fine fare for my family for the next five hours? I stepped back into our cabin and picked up one of the sausages. “There’s a Tajik out here begging who fought in the Afghan war,” I announced. I reached down with my offering. He reached up with his outstretched hand. A Siberian sausage passed between us.

That should have been it. In fact, if I were writing the story, that is how it would have ended. I wanted the train to move. “Certainly it’s been twenty minutes by now,” I thought. The man tucked the sausage into his coat pocket with thanks and continued beseeching for more, more food, and maybe some rubles too. “Why couldn’t he be happy with my sausage?” I thought. “It’s like the Afghans say, ‘there are two things that are never full – the beggar’s bowl and the mullah’s stomach.’”

I met myself on the train platform in Zima, Siberia. I wanted my giving to be easy. Out of my abundance had I not been so generous? I wanted him to be satisfied – satisfied with my small talk in Persian, satisfied with my compliments about his son, satisfied with the gift from my table. And still the train did not move. But I did. I came back into our cabin and sulked, turning over the uncomfortable occurrence in my mind. “Why can I not feel satisfied through this giving?” I mused.

The train jerked and began to move forward. I looked past our cabin door into the corridor and saw the veteran from the Afghanistan war jumping up to catch a final look at me through the window. His face was smiling. The begging was over. I ran to the window to bid him and his son farewell. Looking back at them on the Zima platform I waved as I watched them diminish in size while the Trans-Siberian Railway took us onward to another adventure.

Back in the States in the Interserve office, Lois and I met with our finance director. “You’ll need to raise more support to meet your budget,” he said. Lois’ modest salary from the school in Thailand was finished and we now need to make up the shortfall. With eighteen months before us in both the States and New Zealand, we face the unenviable task of finding funds from donors who support our ministry.

At the same time, these donors are not some random travellers passing through our lives. They are partners with us in our work, some of them showing interest in us for over fifteen years. I’ve been pleased to find how many folk back home really have been keeping up with us, reading our newsletters, praying for us, and supporting our ministry.

Yet even with all that, despite the “noble cause”, I often feel like a beggar at a train station. I guess that’s my challenge during this season of life: how to give and how to receive. And it all rose to the surface when I met myself on the train platform in Zima, Siberia.

Buphals Story

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Medical / Health

It started six months ago when a mother brought a very thin and unresponsive child to our new nutrition rehabilitation centre. He was 4 years old at the time and only weighed 10 kg, when a normal Nepali 4 year old should tip the scales at about 14kg. His name is Buphal. Buphal is the only son of a woman whose husband left her a few years ago. She has tried to do the best she can by carrying loads of rock and other building materials for a living, but caring for her son has not been an easy job. After all, Buphal is not your average child. Since the beginning of his life he has had special needs. He has a disease called neurofibramatosis which causes neurological problems and some developmental delays, so his mother has no one to support her in a country where there are precious few programs to help developmentally delayed children.

When he first came to the nutrition centre after a brief stay at our mission hospital he did not interact much with our staff. He was severely malnourished and, after only two days with us, developed signs of pneumonia. I sent him back to the hospital for treatment but his mother took him home and we thought that he must have died. Thankfully I was wrong. A few months later he was back at our hospital suffering from severe vomiting and after a few days was readmitted to the nutrition unit. This time he responded to the love, concern, and food that we gave him. It was an amazing thing to see him blossom into an alert young boy. He quickly became one of our favourites because of his kind wide smile and riveting eyes, and as he put on weight he became more and more verbal and interactive.

Even though his mother is not a believer, Buphal loves our Lord. His grandmother attends our church and has had a great influence upon him. Every Saturday before I go to church I always go to the centre to say hello to staff and the clients. He would often be telling his mum to hurry up because he needed to go and pray. It was very apparent that he believed in praying to God because he would grab anyone passing by around mealtime and say “We need to thank God for the food”. This usually happened several times each meal!

As Buphal left our centre the second time he smiled and joked with us as he walked away. We were all amazed at what a little love and food could do. About a month later his grandmother came to our home one evening. She said that I needed to come to her house to visit Buphal. He keeps on asking her when he was going to see me again. He had not been eating well for a few days and she was obviously concerned. I gave her a few eggs and some fruit as well as a 2 rupee coin (Buphal was famous for collecting coins from the pockets of any visitors at the centre).

A few weeks ago he was readmitted to the hospital. He had had some swelling in his face for a few days and woke up at 4am one morning to tell his mum that they needed to go to the church to pray. Thirty minutes later he was unconscious. When he finally arrived at the hospital he was in cardio respiratory arrest and needed CPR. Amazingly, he survived. I visited Buphal’s bed almost every day for two weeks. Each time I go he has been sleeping. His Mom said that he wakes up to eat, says a few simple words, eats a little, and then goes back to sleep. He did have a dental abscess that may have triggered the whole incident. The tooth is now gone but the results of the lack of oxygen to his brain are evident.

Last week at our monthly section meeting (at work) we read the gospel account of the death and resurrection of Jesus with my staff. I then shared the news of Buphal’s condition and began to cry. I think my staff were a little shocked. That’s fine with me. I shared that Buphal knows that he is going to go to heaven and that whether he lives or dies he is in the hands of God. When we went into the time of prayer two other staff asked for prayer about other needs in their lives. I was greatly blessed since these staff are not believers. We were praying to the God that Buphal believed in. He is the God of a little child, the creator and sustainer of all we see and don’t see. Some of my staff have realised that there is power in our God, a power that can only be accessed through faith in Jesus. What a blessing this was for me to see. To think that this opportunity all came from a relationship with a little child!

Yet, the story does not end there. On Easter Sunday we had a special time of prayer for two people at our church. One of the two was Buphal. The next day his grandmother told me that he was now coherent, talkative, again bugging his mum to pray, and seemingly recovered from the event. I had to see this for myself but Buphal’s father, who has been absent for two years, magically returned. The sad news is that Buphal and his mum left for the father’s village the next day and then less than a week later they all went to Mumbai for work. I have yet to see Buphal but I know that whether I see him on this side of heaven or in the presence of God I will look on the face of a child who truly loves and believes in the risen Lord of all creation.

The Power of Water

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Community Development

If only Nepal – and especially the poor of Nepal – could harness this environmentally friendly and renewable energy for their own development and benefit! Developing hydropower, in today’s world, is better than drilling for oil in Saudi Arabia!

It was in trying to answer this question that a team of us from United Mission to Nepal (UMN) and People Energy & Environment Development Association (PEEDA) came up with the Pro-poor Hydropower (PPHP) concept. We were very aware that much of the commercial hydropower development in Nepal to date has benefited the rich. Wealthy businessmen from Kathmandu and overseas have invested in very profitable projects. Little of the profits from these projects has reached the local poor, even though the projects are built on their rivers.

Yet how do the poor people living high in the mountains of Nepal provide a living for themselves? Most scratch out a living farming on little terraced fields clinging to the steep slopes. At such high altitude, this type of farming produces very little for all its backbreaking work. How can such poor people afford the costs of buying food, health care, education and all the other services we take for granted.

The Pro-poor Hydropower Concept

Pro-Poor Hydropower is a concept by which the rural poor of Nepal are facilitated into the profitable ownership of their water resources. This is achieved through development of commercially profitable1 and socio-ecologically acceptable hydropower projects with the local poor gaining the majority of the benefits of the projects.

But how can the rural poor attain majority ownership?

The mechanism by which the local poor attain majority ownership is by building on the labour component of the project’s construction and operation. Generally, the local poor have nothing to invest except their own labour. In PPHP, opportunities for the local poor to be employed on the project are maximised. Their labour is paid for in both cash and equity (shares) – see the figure. The labourer earns shares by sacrificing part of their wage. This wage sacrifice is then multiplied through a grant and soft loan facility. For each share that is earned through labour contribution, a number of shares are purchased through a grant (from donors). Another few shares are purchased through a soft loan facility.

Currently, we are in the first phase of a trial project which is looking at the feasibility aspects and putting all the project components together. Phase 2 will see the project move into implementation. Should the trial project prove to be successful, we are looking to role out the project to many more areas of Nepal. Our aim is that poor communities will be able to receive a regular cash income through dividends, many years into the future.

Arabian Miracles

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Medical / Health, Arab World

The child and mother death rates in our serving country are horrific – 1 in 10 children dies before the age of 5, and 1 in 8 women can expect to die of a complication during pregnancy or delivery. What’s worse is that they say that God has ‘written’ this for them and they see no possibility for change.

The clinic and health teaching are a response to the physical needs of the people but our goal is also to address their spiritual needs. I have often prayed with patients and try to bring a conversation about the Father into as many consultations as possible. Recently, though, I’ve been challenged to expect more.

I was walking down one of the streets in the shanty town during the weekend with two colleagues, Darren and Steve, specifically looking for people who needed prayer for healing. I’d been doing the same on and off with another friend for the previous four months but with no “success”. All of sudden Darren told us clearly, “The next man we’ll come to has pain in his neck and God is going to heal him”.

Darren and Steve are specialists. They’d come here specifically to pray for the sick and they have faith built on many experiences of answered prayer. In particular, they thrive on ‘words of knowledge’ – knowing what the Father is about to do – and Darren knew that the next man we met was about to get well. So we stopped outside the next shop. The 45 year old man standing there had indeed had neck pain for several years, unhelped by medicines. Darren told him about the word of knowledge he had just received and asked if we could pray for him in Jesus’ name. Our new friend willingly agreed.

We prayed together for about a minute and then stopped to ask how he was feeling. With an almost expressionless face he said, “Yeah, the pain in my neck’s completely gone, but my back still hurts.” So we prayed for his lower back too and in another minute that too was fine. We were delighted, but the local guy didn’t seem particularly surprised! (I’ve seen him several times since and he’s still well.)

By that stage we had unwittingly gathered a crowd of about fifteen spectators, most of whom were children. Darren got another word of knowledge that there were children there who had pain in their thumbs. I turned to ask the boy next to me how his hand was. He’d bashed his thumb three days ago and it was still sore. I prayed for him with no change, but when Darren prayed… guess what! In fact four children in the crowd were immediately released from various pains in their hands – and the look of surprise on their faces convinced us that they weren’t just playing along. Something really surprising had happened.

Needless to say, by now we were the centre of attention! A man was literally tugging on my arm to get us to come and pray for his wife who had a severe kidney infection and was in real pain. We went with him to his house. As we prayed for her Steve knew that the main problem wasn’t physical but that she needed a spiritual encounter with God. So we prayed for a vision. She then described how she saw “a heavenly being” pass in front of her closed eyes and she felt a release in her self. When we arrived she had been hunched over and totally depressed but we left her smiling and relaxed. Her physical pain also lifted gradually and she was healed without antibiotics overnight.

At least two other women were also healed that day. One was so pleased that she later organised a meeting for fifteen friends and invited me and another couple to go back and pray for them. When we returned, we had to correct some misconceptions. She had told her friends that we were going to read the Qur’an over them – a traditional healing method here. We gently explained that, just as Jesus healed people when he walked on earth, he heals people today when we pray to him. We sat with these women and prayed for each one in turn. Several reported that their pain was gone, while others simply felt the presence of a heavenly power.

For me, the most significant part of this second meeting was that these Muslim ladies were gathering earnestly to seek God in a faith that they’d never looked into before. It felt like the beginnings of a church. I believe that some have started to recognise the fruitlessness of their past and may soon seek God in a new and living relationship through the only mediator, Jesus.

However, miracles on their own do not bring people into this relationship. There is still much hard work to do in explaining the good news of complete healing – of salvation. This work (which in the west we might assume is easier than working miracles) is actually harder here. People are very willing to have their illnesses and minor problems healed (who wouldn’t be?) but the idea of repenting and turning to a new faith is not so popular. Furthermore, in a society where decision-making is corporate, and where a monolithic religion stands guard over the mind and will of individuals, change is slow.

This was made apparent by the response to the gospel itself. After the second meeting I left two copies of the New Testament with the woman who had organised the meeting. The community leaders quickly found out and were very angry – warning me that giving out the Book could result in a fast ticket back to the UK. Their threats are real. I continue to wait and watch for the opportune time to pray again for healing and to explain the Good News.

“Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but… against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12) May the God who so clearly has authority over sickness also demonstrate his authority over this oppressive, false religion and liberate the captives into the Kingdom of the Son. Please pray with us.

Life and Death

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Medical / Health

One of the things that I was most eager to do during my time in Pakistan was to learn how to tackle these situations, and while I’ve had a couple of chances to participate in breech deliveries, the twins have been more elusive. Every morning my eager inquiries as to the presence of an impending twin delivery received a head shake and a reply of “Not today.”

Then, finally, the midwives greeted me with huge grins and the news that they had just admitted a woman with twins. Five hours later, one of the senior midwives walked me through the challenging process of delivering the twins. I can’t think of many things in life as joyful as the moment when a baby first enters the world and lets out its first robust cry. Every healthy birth that I have seen has been that way – miraculous and full of wonder. But the birth of these two baby girls – my first set of twins – was particularly special to me, and when they were both safely delivered, I looked up at the mother with a smile, expecting her to be lit up in the way that new mothers are: completely given over to relief and awe at these wonderful new people that she had brought into the world. Instead, the mother of the twins had her face in her hands and was shaking her head, and her female relative who had come to be with her during the delivery was ranting angrily in Urdu. I looked inquiringly at the midwife who explained that the mother and her sister-in-law were very sad because now the mother had three daughters and no sons. For the next fifteen minutes, as I helped clean up and get the woman settled, I watched as the mother-inlaw entered and proceeded to join in the sister-in-law’s angry tirade towards the mother who sat limply in bed with a defeated expression on her face, knowing that she had failed twice over because neither of her twins had been the desired son.

My initial response was anger – that these two perfect and beautiful babies would enter a world in which their own mother and grandmother see them as signs of failure. But my anger gradually faded. It’s not their fault – these women have received so little respect themselves that they are unable to see the value in a female child, in their own daughters. They are taught to measure their successes by the sons they produce. Life as a woman is not easy here. I’ve lost count of the number of women who have come to the clinic after 3, 5, even 12 miscarriages or after anything from 3 to 17 years of infertility. They look at me with despair in their eyes and say, “If I don’t give my husband a son, he will divorce me” or “He will take another wife.” I’ve also lost track of the number of second wives who have come in bowed under the pressure of producing the son that the first wife failed to produce and chafing under the bitterness of the first wife who strives to make the new wife’s life as difficult as possible.

The occupation of helping women through childbirth is an emotional roller coaster: a woman goes through the worst pain of her life and then, suddenly, the pain is replaced by utter joy. In one room a baby takes its first breath, and in another room, a baby who will never draw breath enters the world lifeless. One woman cries as she hears her baby’s heartbeat for the first time, and in the room next to her, a woman cries as she learns that her baby’s heart has stopped beating. Last week the doctor and I came to two women who were in adjacent beds. In one bed was a woman who after seven unsuccessful pregnancies and after spending three months in a hospital bed had finally given birth to a son. She held that baby as though he were the most priceless treasure in the world and looked up at me with a face lit by absolute joy. With the advent of that baby boy the very real threat of divorce had instantly dissolved. In the bed next to her was a woman who had had nine miscarriages but was now exactly six months pregnant and who, before today, would smile delightedly up at me every morning as her belly slowly swelled. This morning, however, the woman wasn’t smiling. Reluctantly, she confessed to us that she’d had contractions all night. By the time she acknowledged it she was in full labour, and she went on to give birth to the 24 week baby. In Pakistan, this baby didn’t have a chance. It was too much to look at these two women: the one gazing down at her new son as though every dream had been fulfilled; the other staring down at her hands, her face empty of hope.

I haven’t come up with any answers for why babies are born into a world that doesn’t want them, but I do know that one of the greatest privileges of being here in Pakistan is being able to minister to their mothers. The greatest wonder of our Christian faith is Emmanuel – God wondrously and unexplainably with us, sharing in the good parts of life – friendships and family, new births, worship, fulfilled dreams. But God also undeniably with us in the disappointments, in sickness, in broken relationships, even in death. In the meantime, I hope that these disappointed mothers will learn to love their daughters. I hope that the twins will have a better life than their mother has had – a life in which they are cherished for who they are. And I hope that all of them can come to know the love of the One who formed them and who will one day wipe away our tears for good.

Tibetan Buddhists

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Theology / Church

Hospitality and Heartache

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Other, Arab World

As we whizzed in and out of cars that seemed to be hurtling down upon us from every imaginable angle, it quickly became clear this was every man for himself and I was astonished at how it was possible that the cars didn’t all crash into one another at every turn. And as I noticed the great number of machine guns sticking out of the sides of the cars that were passing us, combined with the soldiers in uniform walking down the street hand-in-hand, I was beginning to wonder what I had let myself in for.

I don’t think I ever got used to the strangeness of this new culture: the early morning call to prayer from the local mosque, or the women dressed from head to toe in black robes, or going to a wedding where there were no female guests, only men dancing in a huge circle leaping up and down and twirling daggers in the air; or being invited for tea to the equivalent of the Bank of England at midnight by a stranger I had got chatting to an hour earlier in the middle of the street. But by far more striking than the unfamiliarity of the culture was the hospitality and generosity of the people. I thought I would have very little contact with the locals but thanks be to God the exact opposite was the case. It was practically impossible to walk from end of the street to the other without someone coming up to greet you with a huge smile and often within minutes you’d be exchanging numbers and arranging to meet up for dinner. I have never felt so welcome or safe anywhere. People ask me if I ever felt unsafe, but in fact the only time I ever felt in danger was when trying to pay for the bill after eating out!

My fondest memories, however, were of the children, who seemed to be everywhere you went. Whether it was walking through one village and finding all the children at the local waterfall doing the washing, or walking through another village and joining in with a football game, everywhere the children were full of joy and life and just wanted to play all day, despite having practically nothing of their own, often not even any shoes. It was always a mistake to get out your camera as you would be caught for hours being forced to take photo after photo as the children lined up to have their portrait taken.

Despite the many times of joy and fun, there were also times where it felt my heart was breaking. The poverty was not as obvious as I had expected but you didn’t have to go very far from the main streets selling computers and cameras to find little shanty villages where whole families were living in tiny sheds made of corrugated iron. One in two children suffer from malnutrition, one in six women die from complications related to childbirth, and literacy is 30% among the men, 10% among the women. Drug addiction is widespread.

Even more heartbreaking though was the spiritual plight of this people I had fallen in love with. Out of the millions of people in this country there are few who have heard of who Jesus really is and barely a handful who worship him as Lord and God.

As our team was worshipping one day in a hotel where we were staying for the weekend, with the adults singing out of tune and the children playing their instruments out of time, I noticed two of the hotel workers peeking their heads around the door to see what was going on and I was struck by the grace of our God who welcomes anyone into his presence despite our failings and weaknesses because of the cleansing blood of his Son. How different to their idea of God who demands outward perfection in the ritual observances of washing and prayer and yet who seems to care so little for the inner parts. So often I was reduced to tears thinking about the millions of people in this country who have lead such hard lives and are facing an eternity of darkness without ever even having heard the gospel.

And yet God is so clearly at work in this land. I was amazed by the opportunities I was given to share my faith. In a country where nearly every conversation begins “Where are you from? Are you married? Why not? Are you a Muslim? Why not?” it was far easier to talk about Jesus than in England. And I was amazed at how open people were to taking scripture. I remember asking one guy, who became one of my best friends while I was out there, if he would like a copy of Luke’s gospel and was a bit dispirited when he declined. However, he then said that what he really wanted for many years now was a whole Bible and I was overjoyed to be able to pass one onto him. The next time I saw him he was memorising the Sermon on the Mount! Another friend, whose name literally meant ‘Servant of the King’, when presented with a gospel shouted out “I love you I love you I love you I love you” and then declared we were best friends for life. The greatest privilege, however, was being able to pass on a Bible to someone who had been born again by listening to Christian radio but knew no other Christians and had no Bible of his own.

The whole trip was an amazing experience, not only in the joy of meeting people from that country but also in getting to know the people I was on the trip with and other Christians who are working out there, all of whom immediately felt like family for me. I have thought about my trip every day since returning to England and can’t wait to return one day for longer. I saw so much of God’s heart for people while I was out there and the experience has changed my life. I just pray now that more and more people from that country will be set free by the God who came to die for them.

Marefats Story

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Community Development

I’ve always enjoyed newborn babies. I love the smell of them, their soft skin, and the sound of their tiny cry. I don’t even mind feeding schedules and mounds of baby laundry. I guess you could say it’s in my blood. Over the past thirty-five years my parents have fostered 129 infants and toddlers in their home, and before moving overseas, my husband and I carried on the tradition by caring for a few little ones ourselves. So when my friend who is a mid-wife at the international hospital in our city told me about the tiny infant, it was an easy decision for me.

The first time I saw little Marefat, I gasped. I had never seen such a tiny child and I was almost afraid to touch her. Her legs and arms were sticks that appeared too long for her body. Her ribs protruded and her eyes looked too big for her head. There were wires connected to her chest and hands and feet, and a feeding tube in her nose.

Marefat was the thirteenth child of her mother and father. The first one lived until three years old and then died from a burn accident. All the other children died in pregnancy or delivery. When Marefat’s mother was pregnant with her, as with her other pregnancies, she developed preeclampsia, a condition that hinders the growth of the developing foetus and endangers the mother’s life as well. When Marefat was born it was discovered that she had an RH negative blood type, another life threatening condition which, in the West, is easily remedied with a blood transfusion. Both of these problems probably caused the deaths of the eleven other siblings. But Marefat’s mum was in the hospital and near death herself at just the time when two doctors from the international hospital were visiting her village. A stroke caused by her condition had paralyzed her and she could not walk, talk, or even eat on her own. The doctors were deeply concerned for both mother and baby and arranged for them to be transported to our city. Although they thought it was likely the baby could not survive at that stage of development, they knew they had to deliver the baby to save the mother’s life. But the baby was a fighter and God had a better plan.

CURE International establishes and operates teaching hospitals in the developing world for the medical and spiritual healing of disabled children and their families. Marefat’s mum delivered her at the CURE Hospital in our city and stayed ten days longer to recuperate. By the time Marefat’s father decided it was necessary for him to return to his village to plant his fields, her mother had regained the use of her legs, but was still very ill and could not take care of her own needs, let alone the baby’s, so she also returned home to recuperate while the baby remained in the hospital.

Studies have proven that if a baby’s physical needs are met but she is never held, or touched, or lovingly spoken to, she can actually die. So ten days after her birth I found myself in the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) of the hospital caring for the tiniest baby ever to be born at CURE. Every morning I visited her and spent an hour and a half stroking Marefat’s head, massaging her hands and arms, feeding and bathing her, singing to her, and praying for her and her family. I saw her first smile and watched the weak grip of her fingers grow stronger every day. I rejoiced with her every time the nurses told me she gained a few more grams, and watched her ribs slowly disappear behind the baby fat now growing on her body.

One day, a month after I began visiting Marefat, the NICU nurses told me they thought she would progress more quickly if she were cared for in someone’s home. She was completely healthy by this time, and just needed to grow a little bigger. By that evening I had made a little bed for Marefat on a living room chair and once again I began the routine of waking every three hours round the clock to care for a very special little child.

Three weeks later, Marefat’s father returned to our city to be reunited with his now almost “plump” five pound baby girl. The reunion was sweet, and one couldn’t have found a happier or prouder father. A resident doctor accompanied Marefat and her daddy to their home and later reported that Marefat’s mother was overwhelmed with joy and emotion. He said the entire village was touched by the care of the foreigners for this family.

The mother and infant mortality rate in this south central Asian country is second only to that of the country of Liberia. Marefat’s family lives in a remote village where the mother and infant mortality rate is higher than has ever been recorded anywhere in the world. Tradition, superstition, and lack of education in basic health care result in the deaths of thousands of women and children in that province each year. One of the most common causes of death is caused by girls marrying and having children at such a young age that their own bodies are not yet fully developed and ready to bear a child. In delivery the baby becomes ‘stuck’ in the birth canal, and because there is no proper medical care nearby, mother and baby both die.

Marefat’s story is a wonderful tale of miracles and divine intervention. The kind of story we all cherish, and one we expect to finish with the fairytale ending, ‘and they all lived happily ever after’. But three weeks after writing Marefat’s story I was heartbroken to learn that she has died of diarrhoea and dehydration. My spirit groaned within me as I grieved for her, but my grief seemed like nothing as I remembered her dear parents and the agony they must be experiencing with the pain of losing all 13 of their children. Sometimes, intermingled with my feelings of pity and compassion for them, I feel a confused sense of anger: “how can anyone be so stupid as to let a baby die of diarrhoea”! I repent and cry out to God in desperation for these precious, needy people. “How can so few of us make a difference in a country whose basic needs are immeasurable? What difference can my presence be among 28 and a half million people, some of whom hang their women upside down by their feet, or bounce them in the air on a sheet during delivery, or tie off the baby’s umbilical cord using thread made of cow dung, causing tetanus! I feel so small and overwhelmed.”

And then a still, small Voice gently reminds me that He is the God who fed thousands with the five loaves and two fish of an obedient child. He is the God of hope. He is the hope of the nations.