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THANKS!
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Pray for Philar…
Philar is one of the women that I work with here. She’s 62 years old, is HIV positive and suffers from asthma and TB. Besides cooking at the feeding center, she also takes care of (with the help of one daughter) nine of her grandchildren who have either been orphaned or abandoned.
About 2 yrs ago, one of Philar’s toddler age grandchildren become severely malnourished while in the care of her (the child’s) father. One of our AIM teams helped get the child into a hospital about 1.5 hours away where they are able to treat malnourished children. Philar lived at the hospital for an entire month to be the care giver for the child. Just yesterday I saw a picture of the child, and she is now looking chubby and healthy…so much different than when I first met her 2 yrs ago.
A couple months ago a man broke into Philar’s house in the middle of the night and beat her up, dislocating her shoulder and inflicting many bruises. We’re not exactly sure what motivated the attack. Philar has had a hard time recovering. Last week, Thulie, one of the other women I work with who is also HIV positive herself, called to let me know that Philar needed to be taken to the “Hope House,” a facility that helps care for HIV positive people who are unable to take care of themselves at home. Thulie made sure they had a room available, and Musa, one of our Swazi staff, arranged for transport there. The hope house provides a small one room apartment for each patient to live in. Thulie (and her 2 yr old son) stayed w/ Philar to help cook her meals, etc.
Last thursday Philar needed to go get her records from her previous doctor, so her and Thulie tried to walk the 6 blocks to catch a bus to get there. Philar was only able to make it one block down the street, and couldn’t go any further. Thulie left here sitting in the grass along the curb, while she walked to our office to get one of us to see if we could drive them. I drove them to the clinic, and then back to the Hope House later that day.
I called Thulie yesterday to see how things were going. She said Philar is now refusing to take her ARVs (AIDS medication) and only wants to take the traditional Swazi medicines (which are worthless against AIDS). It seems like Philar is just giving up. Thulie is encouraging Philar to keep fighting, b/c so many children need her.
I’m hoping I can go visit Philar tomorrow and also try to pray w/ her and encourage her. Please join me in praying that the Lord would strengthen Philar’s body and encourage her heart!!
What’s up w/ Ellie and Julie…
Ellie started preschool this week and so far so good! We are thankful that the school is just a block from our house (although we still struggle to get there on time!) and is a great little Christian Academy where lots of missionaries and foreigners send their children. Her classmates are from all over the world.
A funny story from her first day: When I went to pick Ellie up after her first day of school the teacher said, “How do we ask her if she needs to use the toilet!?” The teachers would ask Ellie if she needed to use the “toilet,” or the “lou” or go “wee” and ellie would pull on their pantlegs and yell “potty!!” (like she’s used to at home, but not a word they use here). Neither could understand each other and Ellie ended up having a little accident her first day of school. 🙁 It didn’t seem to phase her. Even in preschool there are cross-cultural things to figure out! 🙂
That’s the update from Swaziland! Thanks for reading!
