His Mercies Are New Every Morning (by Amanda)

Last week I spent a lot of time in the hospital visiting and praying with a woman named Precious. She is a former prostitute from Nigeria and was saved through the work of a fellow missionary here about two years ago. She recently needed some serious surgery. Let me tell you that Precious' faith is incredible. In the US we can go to the hospital for surgery and can count on: the doctors having a blood supply, the cafeteria will provide us with a good variety of foods (even if it isn'’t always as good as we'’d like), the linens will be clean, that the nurses will make sure we are getting enough fluids, and that someone will deliver the correct medication. Yes we may be concerned about how much the insurance will cover and how much we will have to pay, but at least we know the details will be taken care of. Although the Malian hospitals do the best they can with what little the have, the standards fall way short of Western medicine.

This hospital was a whole new world and seeing it through the eyes of Precious was just an incredible experience. If someone does not have family to take care of them it is very difficult. They need to buy food and they need someone to bring it to them; they need to buy there own needles to make sure they are sterile; they need to bring there own clean linens and they even need to go to the blood bank and buy their blood type so it is on hand for the doctors during surgery. Basically the whole system is a-la-carte! What is my point? This is it, Precious has no family to take care of her, but she needed this surgery, but who would help her? Instead of complaining because of lack of family she praised God for His gift of safety. She thanked God for each time He interceded for her. She would say every time I came to visit her "God has blessed me"”. She who has so little has such great praise for God. We sat and would read the Psalms and I could see the comfort she received from them, for this I praise God. He is not a God who stands at a distance. Instead, He is a God who comes down and touches our very lives and goes right to the heart of our needs.

Today I will not be going to the hospital which makes me very happy, because today I will go to her house.

Lamentations 3:22-23a - Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning...…