Burn Care, again!

Avu and our son in happier days last year

You may remember that almost a year ago, our then-2-year-old son got a serious burn on his shoulder and neck. It required several weeks of care before it fully healed. We had lots of remote medical advice through emails and some DHLed medical supplies. It was a traumatic process for us as parents and God really showed His faithfulness in providing the wisdom and materials we needed, but now we know God was also preparing us for another little 2 year old boy with a burn (we’ll call him Avu).

Avu has been our little friend for a long time. He lives across the street in a building that houses a mass of humanity that is his multi-generational family. His mom is the oldest of 12 siblings and he is the youngest of his 7 siblings. He was born shortly after our arrival to Clove Island in 2013 and only a few days after his first niece. As soon as he was able, he started giving us his cute baby smiles. He’d reach for us and appear to enjoy being held by these strange white people. He liked us. He was our friend, and as he got older he was always ready to give us a smile with a wave or a high-five.

Avu has almost no supervision. His mother isn’t around a lot and usually his 11 year old sister is expected to take care of him. When we see him, he is usually holding trash, covered in dirt, not wearing pants and giving us a smile.

Then a couple weeks ago, I was heading out the door to the store, when his grandmother absently called me over to ask me if I had any medicine for Avu. He gave me a smile as she lifted up his oversized shirt and I saw a few blisters and some open skin. Avu had a burn. At first it didn’t look that bad (his darker skin fooled me), but after we looked at it properly we were flooded with memories of our son’s burn. Avu’s burn was deep and his family didn’t have plans to get him any medical care beyond asking us if we had anything that could help him. In the meantime he was still just playing in the dirt.

The daily burn check

So after checking with our team doctor, we went back to the daily burn care of a toddler. We know it wasn’t a coincidence that we had a bunch of leftover supplies from our son’s burn. We knew what to do, we knew what to ask for at the pharmacy, we knew what to look for in the burn progression. We still asked for advice and support from professionals, but this time we knew we could help.

So every afternoon, we call Avu over. An older sibling or adult comes to hold him and sometimes a troop of young kids come too (to watch). We have the burn bandaged up so even though the outside wrap is often black with dirt and sometimes wet with who-knows-what, the burn has stayed clean. Unfortunately he isn’t as excited to come to our house now. He doesn’t smile. Instead he usually starts crying before he even crosses our threshold. But on the positive side, his burn is getting better. I see him walking more normally again and playing with his friends on the street.  He’s healing and we thank God.

And a couple days ago, I saw him from our porch with his little bandaged leg. He looked up at me, waved and gave me a little smile. He’s still our little friend.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Avu’s burn is healing nicely and without infection.  We are very thankful for that.  The team of short-term visitors arrived safely and our team has been in high gear orienting them.  Our role during these orientation days was to watch the team children.  So we’re thankful that we and all the little kids survived the past few days while their parents were off orienting.  We’ve also been blessed to have some visitors this week from Volcano island.  We are really enjoying visiting with them.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Keep praying that Avu’s burn would heal up completely, and that this would be another opportunity to go deeper with this family.  Pray for the team of visitors.  They all left for home-stays today.  During this time they will live with islanders for about four days.  It tends to be very intense and can be hard (since they don’t have a common language usually) but is a great learning time.  Pray that it goes well for all five short-termers. We are halfway through the month of fasting and get opportunities to share everyday, pray we would speak with wisdom and discernment in the different situations.