Johannesburg: Awesome God...

I met Pauline's cousin who came in from Nigeria. Apparently he knew before boarding the plane in Abuja that she had passed away but still decided to come and take her body back home. It was really hard to know what to tell someone in that kind of situation but I did my best to comfort him.

The next day, I was informed that Kechi was stable during the night and the respirator problems did not repeat themselves. She had been scheduled for surgery that day for debridement of the right arm. This meant that they would scrape away dead tissue so as to prevent infection and also prepare the area for skin grafting.

The anesthetist was there to inform me that they were spacing the surgery out a bit so that they did not destabilize Kechi and lower her body temperature for too long. Again, I shut my mind to what was going to happen to Kechi in the OR, and just focused on the fact that every trip to the OR was a step towards her total recovery. This kept me sane.

Pauline's cousin sought me out in the visiting room to tell me that he was going back to Nigeria. He would not wait to take his cousin's body with him after all because an autopsy had to be performed on her at a different hospital and then her body would be flown back. Then he shocked me by giving me quite a bit of money to help defray my expenses. Even in his pain, he reached out to me. I was truly humbled. I cried as I hugged him and he comforted me and told me he would continue to pray for Kechi. When he left, I went to pieces. Luckily, I was alone in the waiting room.

I called Ulo, told her what happened, and asked her to please tell me something I could do for God. There must be something more than just praising Him and giving thanks. Ulo told me to just bask in His love and to praise Him.

When I had settled down a bit, Uloma asked me to please not call her to cry on the phone, or had I forgotten that I was there with a very sick child? This made me laugh because I realized that when I called Ulo and was crying on the phone, she assumed that the worst had happened, that Kechi had passed away. I apologized but told her that Kechi was not going anywhere.

Ulo spread the news like I expected her to and soon Mom and Dad called me to remind me that God is Jehovah Jireh, the God that provides all our needs, and He would continue to provide even before I asked...

To Be Continued...