Urgent Care

(*note. the account here of a painful ear infection, while written in the present tense, actually references an episode that happened back in May. While I tend to relish sympathies that come my way regardless the conditions that prompt them, I assure my readers that full recovery has happily come and all is well!)

Looking back to the era those years ago, I can appreciate that it had registered with me, even then.

At nine years of age, fighting for survival those long months in a hospital’s polio ward, I could sense (though not in every moment but a lot of the time) the presence of prayer at work. While not equipped at that age to assess – much less articulate – things about the near-tangible element holding my restless soul in check. The tethering cord of heart and mind that kept me going forward, although deprived of the luxury of functioning limbs, was the tethering cord of Hope.

Sitting here now, restless and agitated with piercing stabs sporadically shooting through the regions of my left ear and throat, I am oddly enough, sensing it again. Awareness of hope. Of it’s resilience. Peeking up through the soil of the heart’s garden by way of the compassionate prayers of a loved one. Or a stranger.

A favorite scene pictured in the memoir, Living With a Limp (© Jerry Lout, Amazon) features a nurse. Who, before heading home after her shift at Hillcrest, would often swing by my ward and – catching my attention – cheerily call out, “Goodnight, Jerry, I’m praying for you!”

Hope rooted in someone’s prayer was, I am convinced, ever looping in the background. Even on the day when, in exasperation, I let loose a rude profanity. Unbecoming for that “nice little Christian boy over in muscle-stretch therapy”.

In the wee hours of last night I texted my engineer friend in Houston, Mr. Chen. Alerting him that I would be grateful for a prayer or two uttered on my miserable behalf (every swallow was a visit to the gallows). I knew that he would not likely manage to respond until hours later. Yet, the simple knowledge within me that Chen would at some time or other prevail on my behalf before God, opened afresh the gates of a sweet reservoir of hope.

P.S. The morning’s second visit to Urgent Care this week holds the promise of a battery of antibiotics. So, we hold out in hope.

Trusting Walgreen to come through. Knowing our Lord will companion us forward, regardless.

(*faithful to his character, he has)

Klak. Klak. Klak. Klak.

The sound of an archery bow thumping a bedroom window deep into the night is one not easily forgotten.

Our watchman’s smokey voice joined the klacking sound outside, pronouncing my surname as best he could, “Bwana Lauti, Bwana Lauti.”

At Nyamahanga’s second or third call I stirred. The bedside clock read 1:30 a.m.

“Bwana Lauti. . . Mama karibu kuzaa.”

The cement-plaster floor of our room felt cool to my bare feet. Flashlight in hand, I was soon exiting the room, “Honey, another ambulance run. A Mama has gone into labor.”

“Ok,” a sleepy voice murmured back. “Be careful.” it was a role-reversal of sorts – Ann, normally the late-night riser when a baby needed changing or fed.

A few minutes passed. I whispered a prayer as the father-to-be who had raised the alert, took his place in the passenger seat. We were off to fetch the missus, then get her to Kehancha.

Such “ambulance runs” had evolved as part of a naturally-assumed job description for any bush missionary. The assumption, we agreed, made sense, as mission personnel were among the scant number of people owning a motorized vehicle.

The race against time came pantingly close some nights over my three-plus years of free, on-call ambulance service. But I somehow outpaced the labor contractions with every midnight jaunt. The same was mostly true for Canadian friend Phil Harman of Suna Mission some distance away. Except one night. A good part of the next morning found him vigorously doing a scrub-down of floorboard and rear seat in his newly-christened VW Bug Delivery Room. Mother and newborn had fared just fine.

Over time we grew to wonder what next medical crisis could visit the compound. It was during such a period a young man appeared at our back entrance. Night had fallen. He stood bleeding profusely, leaning into the support of another man. The machete attack had found its mark.

Jesus help us.

Tag: Urgent Care

A Tethering