Josie Update & Village Prayer

I cannot thank you enough for interceding for the healing of baby Josie! She is alive! And continually getting BETTER.
This is a medical amazement, isn't it? Who could heal someone with non-stop seizures, who had a total body central nervous system infection, severe purulent bacterial meningitis, blood sepsis, severe pneumonia and liver infection????

And ONLY Him. Not Buddha. Not Ancestors. Not the medicine man.
Only Jesus Christ, son of the Most High God can!!!
And that's what I want you [to continue] to pray for: the hearts of those in the village to be OPEN to the Truth.
Just last Friday, they all felt STRONGLY that Josie was about to die. Every villager left what they were doing and came and stood with Josh and Penny (Josie's parents.) And they waited.
And waited.
But Josie did NOT die.
She began to eat a little again from the bottle. Not just mama's milk, but also congee!
Amazement rippled around the village!!
The next report I heard was that Josie was now nursing directly from her mama! (And the other miracle is that Penny still has milk after so long!!)
So today, (May 26, 2105) my friends are going into the village to deliver medicines. And they will check up on how new believers Josh and Penny are doing and call the others to faith in Christ!
This will be done in their heart language. How much better could it be? Evangelism done by their own people. 
God knew.
Please join with us in holding this special time up in the village: that God will show off and that they will SEE clearly the emptiness of their sacrifices to stone and mere pictures and realize the vibrant truth of a faith in the Almighty Creator God who can HEAL!!!
All of these circumstances are truly incredible. There are precious people who have worked for decades trying to bring Truth to them...and couldn't do it. The time was not right. The barriers are thick. The villagers need to see God in action. That God is for them. And here, in this amazing display of God's glory...they are! 
Keep praying for faith in this village!

Emergency Prayers for Josie!

It's late and there is a fire in my bones. Burning on behalf of a precious little life. She needs our prayers, and this is something you don't want to miss out on.

This is sweet precious baby Josie. She is not even 6 months old yet. She is the precious child of some villagers that we love out in a very rural area of China.
Josie is the 2nd born child to my friends. They are permitted to have more than one child because they are an ethnic minority. However, soon after Josie was born, it was discovered she was sick. Desperately sick. 
Her mother and father have nothing. Zero money. They are subsistence farmers. A sick child has no hope in their midst. Their plan was breaking their hearts in half: they had to just wait for her to die.
But my BFF in China, J and her husband R, said NO! They knew that God was calling them to use this desperate situation to shine the love of Jesus to the village. They personally took on the health costs of little Josie. They took her to two cities, two expensive hospitals and paid for all the expenses: travel, food, surgeries, doctors. It was more expense than they had ever seen in their own lives. They took out debt against their home, borrowed from people they work with and are STILL in the hole paying for baby Josie's healthcare. She told me through tears: "this is the hardest thing I have ever been through."
But this did not stop them. They loved ENDLESSLY. They saw opportunity for the light of Jesus to SHINE in that dark village through the life of this child. They had more than 10 people staying in their apartment while it was going on. It was a massive effort to feed and keep everyone emotionally going. The extended family has a faith, but it is not in the Almighty Living God. They bow down to wooden statues and feel deep anguish in their mindless routines.
Josie was mid treatment when I met her last month. (This was a few days before we went to Gable's orphanage and adopted him.) She had come "out of the woods" as we like to say and was looking amazingly good. Her surgery to put a shunt into her brain was successful. (You can see where they did that on the side of her head.)

You can see how Josie connected with me as I held her. She locked eyes with me. I KNEW she was a special gift of God. I prayed over her that the darkness of the village would be broken by the power of Christ's light because of this baby. 
After we left, the family returned to the hospital for a check up. Josie was doing great! The deeply grateful family returned to their mountain village with her. Life went back to normal. Her parents strapped her to their back and headed back out to the fields to work. 
But something went very wrong.
After only 8 days of hearing that she was all better, Josie became violently ill. Her fever soared. She could no longer eat/drink. (She is exclusively nursing still.) Everyone in the village was crestfallen. They knew there was no hope. 
Surely not now.
Everything had already been given. The debt incurred on my beloved J and husband R is still enormous. How could her parents ask for help again?
They didn't.
They simply sent word that they were going to let her die.
(I'm sorry...can YOU IMAGINE!?!??! We are soooooooooo blessed in our culture to have healthcare insurance! What if WE had to look at our critically ill daughter and merely resign to watch her die? This shakes me to my core.)
J and R said they would not stand by while their niece died. They insisted she be brought out of the village. They took her once again to the local hospital for treatment. In 3 days, they spent a massive amount of money. 
And she's getting worse.
Liver infection. Pulmonary infection. Baby Josie is dying before their eyes.
Church, we need to RISE UP AND PRAY.
This is a picture of Josie taken a few days ago in the smaller hospital. You can see she is losing weight and the sparkle of life in her eyes is dimming.

Even now as I am posting, she is on her way to the larger city for the best possible treatment available to her. J is begging for prayers on Josie's behalf. Prayers that she will survive the long journey.
Pray for Josie that she would not only arrive safely to the larger hospital in the big city but that GOD WOULD HEAL HER COMPLETELY.
We need a miracle, friends.
We want this village to come to the joy of knowing Christ, and we believe with J and R that Josie is going to usher in this faith.
I wanted to ask for people to fast and pray for Josie, and even while writing this a friend messaged me and said she had already planned a 3 day fast and would focus her prayers on Josie. She doesn't even know ANYTHING about this situation yet! How I rejoice! 
God is calling prayer warriors to join in this story. Join in and fight for Josie's life. Pray for total healing. Pray that no more debt is incurred. Pray that the family will receive their beloved daughter back, whole. Pray that the village will see once and for all that JESUS IS ABLE. 
Shine the light by praying for Josie.
(It would be most encouraging to my friends J & R if you commented here or on my Facebook or Instagram that you are joining in the prayer battle! She cannot access any social media, so I will merely tell her numbers. I told her I would gather hundreds to pray. DO NOT LET ME DOWN!! If you choose to share this, let's use the hashtag #prayforjosie!)

Remember all that formula?

If you remember about a month ago, we were getting ready to leave for Africa. We had packed and were pleasantly humming along.

Then we heard about a desperate need. Three babies' lives hung in the balance...they would DIE without formula.

They only had a 2 week supply.

And we were about to leave.

God did a miracle (several really!) and we were able to deliver 2 large footlockers of formula to these village babies because of the generosity of our bloggy readers and friends!


THANK YOU!!

I thought you'd like a peek at one of those to whom you showed sweet love:

The newborn baby girl who was given life by the formula!

Mama is positively GLOWING with happiness! Don't you think?

"For I was HUNGRY and you gave me something to eat,

I was THIRSTY and you gave me something to drink..."

                               Matthew 35:35

Thank you for living out this Scripture to the least of these...

Dairy Love to Uganda!

We've been blogging several of the things that have happened while we have been in Africa. But honestly,

there is NO WAY to tell it all.

However, I want to share some of the work that Brian did while he was here.

As many know, Brian is a dairyman. He operates a large (1,500 head) dairy operation in Ohio. Although he works in this small corner of our existence, he has a heart that goes out to the nations. He knew we were coming to Africa to adopt, but he could not pass up the opportunity to help out a few villages with his dairy expertise.

He spent two full days deworming cattle and goats and giving them an extra nutritional boost. I followed him around with the camera. (I preferred the safety of distance from some of these long horned fellows!)

We traveled on this footpath in a 4WD vehicle to reach the villagers!

Valuable tools to Brian's work!

This village man was a very happy, willing assistant!

"Open WIDE!!" It was funny, some goats whined and complained like toddlers...others said nothing!

Fortunately, deworming cattle is a topical thing now...

This should serve as a reminder to not ask Brian to give you your next shot!!

The goat hold!

A sweet boy who captured my attention while Brian worked on nearly 103 goats and over 50 cattle!

"You said you want to DE-WORM me??!?!?!"