For Angel
and me, the call to be in a remote mission setting has been a definitive call.
It is not uncommon that we get questions about our saneness. The questions have
increased proportionately with the increase in our number of kids. Some of the recent
ones have been like – ‘4 kids and living in a place where the nearest
pediatrician is 120 kilometers away’, ‘how do you manage without an outing to a
mall’, ‘3 days to go home and meet your parents, are you nuts?’
Of course, it’s
not uncommon that we look at adverse possibilities.
Exactly a
month back, we faced such a situation. Our younger daughter, Hesed, aged 2
years old and the most active of our four children took a jump from the upper
deck of our double-deck cot and landed on her right forearm. The hand took
quite an impact. She was not allowing us to touch her right elbow.
And we were
at Barwadih. The nearest help was about 30 kilometers away and we knew very
well that the orthopedician did not deal with such injuries. We had a plan to
visit Ranchi the next day. Thankfully, there was no swelling of the elbow
although there appeared to be some pain.
Overnight,
Hesed did fine. However, the next day as we travelled to Ranchi, we realized that
there was a bit of a swelling of the right elbow. It was difficult to find out
if there was much of a problem as Hesed was a left hander.
As we
travelled, the first thought that came to me was to call up our friend
orthopedician, Dr. Kenny David at CMC, Vellore. To our amazement, he was at a
place near to Ranchi and was on his way to Ranchi airport to catch a flight.
It was
amazing - - - looking from a point of chance. The number of times, we visit
Ranchi as a family is only once in 3-4 months. The number of times that Dr.
Kenny David will come down to Ranchi is maybe once a year. The chance of one of
our children getting an elbow injury is maybe once in a generation. And to have
all of them together in such a way that Hesed gets consultation from the
pediatric orthopedician of a premier healthcare institute of the country when
we are stationed at a remote corner of the country.
Don’t you
think this is amazing? We are definite that the Lord was in control and took
care of Hesed’s elbow.
Dr. Kenny
saw Hesed at Ranchi. We got her X-Ray and then put her on a slab. The X-rays
got reviewed by the pediatric orthopedician at Vellore.
Today, it is one month
since the incident.
Hesed is
doing well. We thank God . . .
We learnt that
how much precious we are for the Lord.
