Going to the Hospital

We attended a special service at Bwerenga Church (on Hope Village Property) on Sunday night. During worship, a two-year old boy napping on a mat on the floor, started convulsing. My first thought was that he was having a nightmare, but when I went to him, I realized he was having a seizure. It last at least 8 minutes, while the church prayed and we turned him on his side and put the end of a spoon in his mouth to keep him from choking on his tongue. When it was done, you could see he was burning up with fever so I carried him outside, and Elizabeth Iverson went to find the parents and get her car keys. The service continued on, and we took him and the parents to the hospital.

The hospital is nothing we would find, even in the ghetto, of our country. Cement walls and floors, with open windows for ventilation. The children’s ward was a room of 17 metal cribs. Moms bring food and a mat to lie on the floor next to their children’s cribs. No chairs, no mattresses, no TV, no mosquito nets; just a lot of waiting and a lot of silence. Another mom let me pray for her little baby with asthma.

Turns out that our young patient, Cerabu, had Malaria and his temperature of 105 is what caused the seizure. I have a picture of this young boy because just the Sunday before, he spent the entire service on my lap. It is to God’s glory that we were there! No one that attends this village church has a car and, who knows how the boy would’ve made it to the hospital if we hadn’t been there. Thankfully, he stayed just the one night at the hospital and was able to go home the next day.