Missionary momma’s prayer

Oh Jesus,

I was so excited to write something today. I woke up just full of words and thoughts, but know I’m finding myself at a loss for words.

The thing is that this day has been very nice. I’ve been upbeat and happy, but I’m concerned about Benaiah now. I love the spring, the spring isn’t loving my littlest guy to much though… or it could be that the weather here changes sooo often! Our boys are on spring break, but the wind was so crazy yesterday that they didn’t even play outside. Colorado weather is so very different from the weather in Chimoio. There are basically two seasons in Chimoio, and four in this corner of Colorado – and we did have a freak blizzard two weeks ago followed by sunshine. So seasons change every other day here…. 

It normally isn’t so bad for our littlest guy, but this week he’s been hit with a cough. Jesus, please sooth his throat, and strengthen his immune system.   

He’s been coughing today, and it is like the cough that he had when the seasons changed in Chimoio. He had such difficult time breathing with the irritation in his throat that we ending up driving him to the private clinic in the middle of the night so he could use a nebulizer. The private clinic was only a few minutes drive away from our house. But with our youngest son fighting to catch a breath, it felt like half an hour away.

When we arrived at the clinic in the middle of the night, everyone was kind and helpful. The staff was great. They led us into their urgent care, and set him up on a bed next to a gurgling machine with menthol smelling mist to soothe his airways. After a little while it helped his breathing slow down and become less shallow.

I remember holding him while he tried to breathe the medicated air in through the face mask. It took a bit over fifteen minutes to open up his breathing, but when we got home he was finally able to sleep. I think I held him all night that night. 

The evening was memorable for many reasons, but one of the most memorable was the compassion and concern in the nursing staff’s eyes as we waited for my youngest son to be able to breathe freely. I never imagined that the problem would persist, but we knew he was in good hands. We ended up having to drive him to the clinic three nights in a row.

When we talked with our doctor, he pointed out that there was more than just the change of the season, there was also a lot of soot and ash in the air because many local farmers burn their fields to clear them for planting. We kept our windows and doors closed as much as possible until the air cleared. We hoped he wouldn’t need an inhaler. The problem passed after a few days. He didn’t seem to have a long-term breathing problem.  

Tonight Benaiah’s throat is still irritated, we’re thinking it’s from a lot of dust in the air that the wind whipped up yesterday. My poor little guy….so we gave him some cough and cold medicine and dabbed some Thieves oil to help open up his breathing. I was a little concerned that he might need a nebulizer, but with a deep sigh of relief I remembered that we wouldn’t have to drive anywhere. It’s nice when your needs are met. We were given a brand new nebulizer so we can help our little guy right away if he needs help breathing. Thank you Jesus for the little things, and the big things….

Missionary Momma Mia

At 7 in the morning, he woke up just now, taking painful shallow rapid breaths. Thankfully the machine was humming in a matter of minutes.....