We don’t have many death-to-life resuscitations in Cavango because of the distance people must travel to arrive at our little “bush” hospital in the middle-of-nowhere Angola. But in the past couple months…

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A one-year-old baby, Maria, arrived listless and short of breath, having lost 3/4 of her blood to malaria and she needed an immediate transfusion. Obtaining IV access in these little ones can be a real challenge. After many attempts, our nurses were able to obtain access through a neck vein, the external carotid.

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Prior to the transfusion, however, the agitated baby dislocated her IV and it went unnoticed for perhaps an hour. Maria’s mother astutely noticed increased swelling in her baby’s neck and difficulty breathing. We removed Maria’s dressing and noticed that, beneath the dressing and all her blankets, the swelling was severe and included her total anterior neck and upper chest. She was fighting for every breath.

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We positioned Maria to help her breathe, putting her head in the “sniffing position” to help open her airway, which only helped a little. We cut open her neck to help relieve the pressure on Maria’s airway, caused by the swelling from all the excess fluid. During the procedure, Maria’ eyes rolled back and she stopped breathing and her heart stopped. We immediately instituted resuscitation efforts with chest compressions, mouth-to-face-breathing, and medications. After a long several minutes, Maria’s heart began beating again and we gave her maximum oxygen supplementation as she took a few breaths. She began fighting for more breaths and we fixed her head position to help her breathe as, every time her neck returned to a more neutral position, she suffocated.

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Over several anxious hours and throughout the night, with one-on-one care, our devoted and tireless nurses were able to maintain Maria’s head position and she continued to breathe. We knew her body would absorb the excess fluid over hours if we could keep her breathing, as injecting a bolus of fluid subcutaneously (usually over the child’s back) is one manner of emergently hydrating a severely dehydrated child when IV access isn’t possible. The fluid is then absorbed by the body.

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By morning, the swelling in Maria’s neck was reduced and she was breathing normally.  We allowed her neck to return to a normal position and she breathed fine.  She received the blood through a needle in her femur and she was out of the woods.  She needed close monitoring and care, but gradually improved over several days and yesterday returned home.

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Another little one, Frederico, arrived about 24hr after birth and his family was appropriately concerned that he wasn’t nursing.  He was born at home at about eight months of pregnancy and weighed less than two kg.  He was hardly breathing and had a heart rate of less than forty beats per minute.  We established IV access in an arm and gave him fluids and medications to stimulate his heart while also breathing for him, mouth-to-face, and performing chest compressions to circulate his young blood and stimulate his (tiny) heart.  After about fifteen minutes, Frederico responded, his heart was beating strongly, and he was breathing on his own with 100% oxygen supplementation via mask.  Frederico’s mother wept openly during the whole resuscitation process, with little understanding of all we were doing, which can appear quite brutal.  

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Skinny, tiny Frederico was then kept under a heat lamp, hydrated via an IV line and he was fed powdered formula while his mother continued to encourage him to nurse.  He survived but, the following day, Frederico’s mother notified us of swelling in his arm that held the IV catheter.  We undid his dressings and found, to our horror, that his arm was white and swollen tight and we noted no movement in his swollen fingers.  He had what is called “compartment syndrome”, where the pressure in a body compartment builds to such a degree that it causes tissue injury/death.  We performed a fasciotomy (large, deep cuts in his arm to relieve pressure in the affected compartment), reducing the pressure from where IV fluid had entered his arm outside of the vein (like with Maria, but in his arm).  We hadn’t experienced these rare potential side effects to IV placement for many years and now we had seen two in the same week.  The next day, I was shocked to see that little Frederico was moving his arm and all of his fingers, indicating that very little time had elapsed after the pressure in his arm had reached destructive levels.

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I thought that Frederico would surely lose his arm, or at least its function, but he has nursed well, gained weight, and continued to move all of his fingers over several weeks of dressing changes where he lost much of the skin in the middle of his arm due to necrosis.  He is also ready to return home with his beautiful, first-time mother who beams with pleasure every time we see her as she cuddles her prized son.

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Bernardo arrived via motorbike over several hours of rough terrain, with his caring family, after surviving 98+years (!) in the bush.  He was very weak and in a lot of pain due to a severe eye infection.  We began aggressive treatment and hydration because he had very little food or fluid intake for several days.  On his second day, his family urgently notified us that he had suddenly stopped breathing.  We couldn’t locate a pulse.  In spite of his age, we began resuscitation efforts and, after just a couple minutes, Bernardo began breathing again with a strong heartbeat. He greeted us with an enthusiastic smile daily and recovered fully and returned home after a week!

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Marco is 65yo and had been with us for over a week and was being treated with a chest tube for TB for many days and also has prostate cancer, which has metastasized.  He was not fit and had been bed-ridden for weeks.  While casually doing afternoon rounds one day before going home, we entered Marco’s room and he was completely still.  He was not breathing and his pulse was very slow and erratic.  I called his very supportive family and they entered the room extremely distraught, repeating over and over that they hadn’t been able to say good-bye.  Because Marco’s illnesses were severe and we had told the family that hope for recovery was minimal, we didn’t want to do a lot, but we began oxygen and gave him some resuscitative medications just to see if he might respond, concerned for both him and his family.  We were surprised to see his heart respond immediately and he began breathing ragged breaths, which then continued to improve over several hours.  Marco awoke and, though his prognosis is poor, he has had some sober, intimate time with his family and they have had the opportunity to tell him everything on their hearts this past week. We’ve had the opportunity to have many conversations and prayer with him and his family about Jesus and the value of eternal life.

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These patients and their families have encountered, unexpectedly, the toughest life can throw at us.  We all, or someone we love, will inevitably face the same, maybe today, maybe tomorrow.  Because of our partnering with you and our Father in creating this simple Cavango work, these few were granted a bit more time in this world.

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We are wise to wrestle with the ultimate purpose of life, and the purpose of our individual life and that of another.  What/whom will we choose to serve as our life’s purpose?  We know that our life, rather than our words, demonstrates what we believe as to purpose and value. 

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Much is emphasized and marketed today by “experts” as to purpose – success, improvement, living “to the full”, increased comfort/ease/pleasure/enjoyment.  Psychology and the “wisdom of the world” preaches to us that our life is ours, our “well-being” is a right and circumstances and others wound us and rob us of this “right” and we must seek to restore our “natural” well-being.  We lack because we need more self-focus and more “self-esteem”. 

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Jesus’ message is as radical and offensive to many today as it has always been, completely contrary to these philosophies promoted by people of the world at large, so much so that He and thousands of His followers have been mocked, tortured, exiled and put to death for promoting his teachings on purpose.  Risk, cost, sacrifice and giving one’s life away for another are sometimes seen as admirable, especially in stories, but not valued personally, as demonstrated by how we spend our most valuable resources of money, time and effort.  Self-betterment has always been the marketed philosophy of the world and is now largely the message of the church which bears Jesus’ name.  We compartmentalize and put ourselves first and foremost, even when we acknowledge that benefiting another has value.  We are encouraged to, once in a while, do something for another because you will feel better for it.  Help others because you will benefit later (karma/superstition/gaining favor).  Personal safety and security is valued and personal risk is to be avoided or minimized (because your life must be protected, at all cost). 

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Jesus encouraged exactly the opposite.  He said that we are of tremendous value and our life is our most precious “commodity”, one which we are to give away to benefit another.  “Die to yourself”, so that Your beloved Father might be known and adored, as only He is due), and for the improved well-being of others. Love has nothing to do with how we “feel” toward someone.  Love is cost.  Little cost equates little love and greater cost equates greater love, no matter what we might feel. “Greater love has no one that this….” 

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Jesus taught and demonstrated, as did those who followed Him closely, that we are called to courageous adventure, outside of ourselves.  We are called to abandon our personal comfort and safety to walk toward/into the fire (at personal cost/risk), enduring the heat of opposition and antagonism, to rescue those trapped in the philosophies of this world to show them the singular Way; to seek out those broken by circumstances and people and lead them to the singular Life; to run into the darkness (and all that entails) to find those wandering and lost in a world which promotes no ultimate truth (“every man is right in his own eyes”), and lead them to the singular Truth.

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We don’t see people (in churches) leaving home, family and security to go to the hard places (where people are suffering) because they aren’t sufficiently “qualified”, prepared or skilled; because they are waiting for “open doors” or to “hear His voice” or to see supernatural “signs”; because they need to find more time in their busy, self-serving schedules; and/or because they don’t “feel” certain enough of their “call” to go.  Is this what we saw in Jesus and those who knew Him? 

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Actually, a very real sense of inadequacy and uncertainty (“we see through glass dimly”) is the most honest and genuine “feeling” of any/all those who go/serve/embrace/teach/rescue in the name of Jesus! 

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We will never feel “fully” qualified or prepared, we will never have more “time”, we will not hear/see obvious “signs” directing us, and we will not “feel” absolute “certainty” about putting ourselves at risk for uncertain outcomes.  Yet Jesus calls us to the adventure/risk/cost of abandoning our lives to “go” and/or to “send” another.

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We don’t “go” to achieve some personal gain or reward.  Jesus spoke of eternal life not as the ultimate “goal” or “reward” but, rather, the reality that frees us to sacrifice this life for another’s benefit because death is simply not the end.  We go out of overwhelming gratitude for the radical and undeserved favor of our beyond-wonderful, care-full and forgiving Father and with the singular desire that others might know Him as we do.

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You may “burnout”, you may be wounded and even die during your always-imperfect venture, your efforts might appear to fail and/or be rejected, and you will be unappreciated, dismissed and forgotten… but, for the benefit of even one, their eternal value is worth it all!

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If we weren’t in Cavango and if so many of you did not sacrifice your hard-earned resources to send us here, these beautifully and lovingly created few (mentioned above), young and old, would be dead today, along with literally thousands of others in this forgotten, neglected region of the world who have been embraced and rescued, and who can choose, again today, to walk with their Father/Maker/Lord/Lover of their souls. 

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Like the man and mother’s child who Jesus raised from the dead and, like every person Jesus healed during His short time in this world, everyone you embrace, heal, feed, clothe and liberate will still die, yet, we are called to serve them and to tell them of their glorious Maker and Master and to demonstrate to them (by putting their “well-being” before our own) the eternal value they are to Him. 

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Where is fire consuming and destroying someone you can rescue?  Where, around you and in other parts of the world. is darkness blinding people from the truth of your Father’s presence and care, that you can personally infiltrate with Light?  Who is wounded, abused, neglected and ignored (there are so many) and needs personally encouraged, embraced, carried and perhaps rescued?

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They live next door, in your neighborhood, on the streets of every crowded urban “jungle” and in every remote “bush” village, and we have the incredible privilege of saying to our Father today, “My life is yours (and theirs), and I give it all to you (and to them)… “here I am, send me.”

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As we consider our purpose, we can embrace Jesus and His words and remember that our life’s eternal value will not be measured by the number of our days, or how fully we “enjoy” the same but, rather, by how we gave our lives to be “spent” by our Father, for the benefit of another….

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