A Story of Survival

Many of you have heard about a baby who presented to Kijabe Hospital before Christmas with a condition called gastroschisis.  This is a problem where the abdominal wall doesn’t form correctly and at birth the child has the intestines on the outside.   This is a difficult problem to treat, but in developed countries, the survival is ~95%.  Unfortunately in the less developed world, like Sub-Saharan Africa, the survival is far below this and likely less than 10%.  This particular child was at a hospital 100s of kilometers from Kijabe where there weren’t the necessary resources to care for him.  Amazingly, at 4 days old, he and his mother arrived at Kijabe hospital with his intestines wrapped in gauze.  I told his mother that his chance of survival was far less than 50% but that we would do all we could to care for him.  He had a very rocky hospital stay over the course of almost 2 months, but  through the power of prayer and the work of our Lord in his people, this baby boy left the hospital yesterday!  He’s got some recovering still to do, but Mom was all smiles as she was preparing to take him home.  

I am so grateful for all of you who have been praying for this child.  He is a testimony to God’s healing power and he is an answer to prayer.  

By His grace, we’ve now had 3 children with gastroschisis survive at Kijabe Hospital.  Just yesterday, another 4-day-old child with gastroschisis was transferred to us.  We continue to covet your prayers for this child and so many other children who come through our doors everyday with difficult and sometimes desperate problems.  Thanks for being part of not only the physical but also the spiritual work in the lives of these kids.