Emergency on the Mountain

*********************************************************************** Hi Becky, Kiana, Jeremy, and Danny, Here’s an experience we had Sunday night that I just wrote about. Hope you enjoy it. We can hardly wait to see you guys! Wendy “Lali’s Angel” Monday Sept. 26 It was 5:45pm after a busy Sunday in the clinic as my roommate, Michelle, and I, and our little tribe of girls hustled up the mountain trying to make it to Kawayan before dark. I’m always impressed with these girls and how they faithfully hike up and down these mountains every day for school and then every Sabbath for church too. They also often hike up and down a couple times in one day when there is an emergency, like today. Half way up the trail, Nurgina, carrying the new stretcher, collapsed on the side of the trail with exhaustion and said, “Meguna kew ne”, “You guys go ahead.” Michelle and I were just as tired, even though we hadn’t already hiked down the same mountain an hour ago like Nurgina had, so we said, “No, we’ll rest with you”. The other girls didn’t mind stopping either. We all had packs on our backs with medicine, books, water, and other emergency supplies. We decided to pray, while we were all together. These girls have amazing faith and I knew they cared a lot for their friend and sister-in-law who was very sick. The girls kept apologizing that they had come so late, but we assured them we knew they couldn’t come earlier because the gungurangs (elders) hadn’t given them permission yet. The trail to Kawayan, as most trails anywhere on these mountains, is very steep, precarious, and slippery. It literally goes straight up the mountain—up, up, up until you’re on the very top of the world, it seems. We could see the tiny, town lights of Brooke’s Point coming on as we walked along the ridge. The view is gorgeous up there. We could also see the lights of several ships glowing out in the ocean, far below. We arrived just after dark, almost an hour later, to find 14 year old Lali in a serious condition. She was disoriented, white as a sheet, and in shock from blood loss. The little hut on the side of the mountain was packed with neighbors and relatives—all friends of ours, and relatives of our school-girl friends. Lali had delivered a baby boy the night before, but her placenta still had not come out. The Palawanos have been hearing and seeing the results of new midwifery techniques used by missionaries throughout the years but have just in the last few months started to apply what they’ve learned. Even though their belief is not to touch the newborn baby or cut the cord until the placenta has delivered, there have been several families who have recently started to actually grab the babies and slap their backs to help them start to breathe and get the water out of their mouths. They have also started to try and remove the placenta by gently pulling on it. These are amazing breakthroughs! I’ve seen too many deaths already in just the two years I’ve been here, that could have easily been prevented with just these simple practices. This family, thankfully, had already cut the cord and wrapped the baby warmly. I was delighted. I had heard that morning that Lali had given birth and that the placenta hadn’t delivered yet, but I was told that the gungurangs did not want me to come (yet). So, when I saw Mami, an elder of their village (and the leader of the whole mountain) on his way home from the market earlier that day, I suggested they try gently pulling the placenta out. But, I warned him strongly NOT to wait long to come get help if it didn’t come out! He seemed surprisingly open and said he would try it. I believe that was the first of the miracles to happen that day. Lali’s mom, Mirning, was the first to rush to my side as I pulled on my sterile gloves to begin trying to remove the placenta. “Anday, Anday!” she yelled. “Don’t pull it! We already tried and it hurts too much!” “Ok,” I replied calmly, “but it must be taken out or she will die. And if I don’t take it out we will have to take her to the hospital.” The other ladies chimed in too (one of whom I had had to take out to the hospital a year and a half ago because they had waited several days to come get me and she was in worse shape then Lali.) One of them told Mirning, “They’ll just do the same thing in the hospital and it will hurt just as bad or worse!” I suggested we pray again, so Michelle and Buba (Lali’s husband and a backslidden church member), and I prayed that God would send his angels to help Lali through the pain and to help me deliver the placenta so we wouldn’t have to make the difficult hike down the mountain, in the dark, to the hospital. Mirning is a very poor widow, dirty as can be, and yet often smiling, joking and teasing (behind her pain). She came for medicine a few weeks ago with her two youngest kids and then later asked to borrow some soap and a “blanket” (a wrap around skirt/baby carrier/blanket) because the only one they had was soaked with urine. She planned to stay with some family in a nearby village until she recovered enough from her sickness to hike back home in a few days. I knew she had no extra blankets or soap back home either so I gave her an old sheet and a bar of soap. When I told her she didn’t have to bring them back she rewarded me with a huge grin like I’d given her a hundred dollars! After the prayer, Mirning jumped up and said, “Muli’ ku ne!” or basically, “I’m outta here!” and she stumbled out of the hut, flailing her hands and exclaiming that she couldn’t handle it (she is so funny even during a crisis!). She left to go cry in her hut, not able to bear seeing her little girl suffer. I began the laborious task of removing the placenta as Michelle helped Buba massage Lali’s breasts to stimulate a contraction. The girls were also great coaches, getting her to push even though it was so painful, and feeding her some Oral Rehydration drink, which she gulped down. She was so exhausted and in so much pain, I was afraid she wouldn’t make it and we’d need to rush her to the hospital any moment . . . but after several tries and a lot of blood clots removed, the placenta finally delivered! Praise God! She stabilized quickly after more rehydration drink, a little food, vitamins, and some greatly needed sleep. Mirning rushed back in as soon as she heard us exclaim, “Salamat ki Empu!” “Thanks to God!” She grabbed our arms and hands and said, “Thank you! Thank you!” And then she asked an interesting question. She said, “Where is the other one that was with you?” Michelle and I said, “No, it was just the two of us.” But she insisted “No, I saw three of you earlier and I thought maybe there was a new missionary that had come.” I started smiling in complete joy as I realized that she may have seen an Angel! So I told her, and everyone else that was, there that God had answered our prayers and maybe it was an Angel she had seen! I’ve only read stories like these, but never dreamed they’d ever happen to me! It was a long and sleepless night for Michelle and I, with just a thin cloth for a blanket, no mat over the bamboo floor, and no walls protecting us from the frigid air (the hut only had two walls). I was still so amazed at how God had shown his love for us, though, and I didn’t mind at all staring up at the beautiful, starry night sky as the hours ticked by. Michelle and I took turns taking care of the baby while Buba kept the torch lighted and rice cooking under the house. He tenderly fed his little wife throughout the night and often woke her from an exhausted sleep to ask if she was alive and if she wanted more rice! At daybreak the next morning, Mami (the head dude) and all the relatives came by to see how Lali was doing. She was doing much better. They thanked us profusely and we reminded them again that it was a miracle from God. They agreed, but still thanked us for coming. They gave us each a plate of precious rice and insisted we eat before heading back down the mountain. This is the same couple (Buba and Lali), who just a year ago spent another traumatic night with us here at the clinic with their first newborn. As naïve new parents not knowing how dangerously sick their baby was, and having pressure from their gungurangs once again, they waited too long to bring her to us. The baby was already stiff and barely breathing when she arrived and I knew she would not make it unless there was a miracle. She stopped breathing as we had evening worship with them that night and then began to breathe again as we prayed. This happened several times during the night before she finally breathed her last. We had a little Christian funeral with the school kids the next day as we buried her behind the clinic with many tears. I wonder if God has something planned for this family and this village? They seem to have had a lot of trials, as well as miracles, to test and renew their faith. Our church members do missionary work in this village every Sabbath afternoon and there is a lot of interest in some of the families. I just pray that God will continue to work through them and our faithful little school girl friends who are a major witness to their family and neighbors up there.