Though it’s only been two weeks since the last medical ministry update, it’s been a packed two weeks. Five babies born already this month; four of them were born in a row with one each day for the first week of April! The ladies were busy going up and down the mountain all week with women in active labor in the back of the car. Thankfully all of the pregnant women made it to the hospital in time, although one was already dilated to a 10 when she called for help!

We are thankful for those who’ve been praying for these women and also financially helping them with these births. Four out of the five babies were born completely healthy and went home. One born today, however, is in poor health. He has breathing difficulties and an enlarged kidney, and will likely be in the NICU at least the next week. Pray he might recover, and our ladies could keep ministering to this family during this difficult time. The mother is well known to us, and we previously helped them when their older daughter broke her leg last year.

We would also ask prayer for the baby in the main picture for this update. This is the female twin of the twins born earlier this year. She has a hole in her heart, an atrial septal defect. Doctors here go back and forth on whether she will need surgery or not. This latest cardiac workup last week was more promising, and it is possible the hole could close on its own. But nobody knows for certain. Pray that it might and this baby could avoid surgery!

We have another case we would ask prayer for. She is a young girl with a very bad blood disease called thallasaemia that makes her severely anemic all the time. This week her hemoglobin was 4. A normal range begins at 12. She was so anemic the doctor said if she did not get a transfusion that day, she would not wake up alive the next. She regularly needs blood transfusions, and we’ve been helping her family off and on for over a year and a half. The condition has severely affected her physical development and health. She is in her early teens but looks like she is only 9-10 years old. The tragic thing is that this condition is treatable in the West, but out here it is exorbitantly expensive and essentially impossible for any refugee to afford – or us for that matter. Her only hope is to be resettled to the West, and the doctor we are working with is willing to recommend them for that to the UN, but resettlements are becoming more rare these days. Pray her family might get accepted to move to a country that is willing to help her. Pray too that the time we have to minister to her family would show the love and truth of Christ.

We continue to have dozens of sick people coming each week for help with acute infections or to get prescriptions filled for various conditions. We are regularly coming back from the pharmacy with a full box of medicines. They stopped giving us bags but now set a box aside just for us! We are thankful for this aspect of the medical ministry, as it allows us to serve many new people each week, as well as refugees we already know well from past years. But pray for wisdom in proceeding, as the needs only grow, and our staffing and ability to fill prescriptions is not always keeping up with it! We had to turn away some people for medicines this week simply due to resource limitations, but are hoping to help them later this week before their conditions would grow worse.

Thanks again to everyone continuing to pray for these labors and sick refugees. God hears your prayers and sees the quiet sacrifices of the many people reading these updates who are helping in various ways!

Thank you again for your prayers and support. This is a work bigger than any of us, but not bigger then God or His church! If you wish to be involved in any way, you can support TGI via our site, sign up for our relief updates e-mail newsletter to better know how to pray, or contact us if you are interested in knowing more about how to be personally involved.