On Wednesday, January 7th, two grandmothers in Apetina were praying for recovery of health of their grandsons.
One granny flew that day with MAF to Paramaribo connecting the next day to her KLM flight to the Netherlands in order to join Maurits’ family Friday early in the morning.
The other grandmother waited in the village until her son would call with the latest news about her daughter and her grandson (4 months old). Since he went into the hospital 3 times a rumor popped up that he had died… which nobody could confirm or deny).
The little Renzimo is fighting for his life. We are grateful for the possibility to take him (and other patients) from the jungle to the hospital in town. The patient is taken care of. But how do the relatives that accompany the patient into town, deal with their new environment? They have no money to pay for a hotel, buy food, pay for transportation to the hospital etc. Where do they get the money? They have to borrow this from relatives or other people in the village.
They turned to us to change some coins into paper Surinamese dollars, asking for an envelope that we would transport to Paramaribo. We saw what went into the envelope … 25 SRD, roundabout US$ 7,50. We added some extra money to that…
For quite some time we pray for and think about a solution (like some kind of shelter) in town for Indian people with this need. One of the leaders came to town some months ago because of problems with their teenage kids studying in the city.
The school arranged a job for the mother in order to provide some income to cover the costs of living. The father has been asked by the Baptist Unie to pay attention (on their behalf) to the large group of Indian teenagers in different school institutions in town. They come for further education. They feel lonely and have a hard time adjusting to city-life etc.
Since a few weeks they started a church gathering on Sunday afternoons in one of the Baptist Churches. They have been taking care of Renzimo’s parents. Last Sunday Marco was able to visit the new Indian Church. More than 40 people attended, singing and speaking Trio and Wayana. We are grateful to see that this initiative bears fruit and see Gods blessings in this.
In the mean time Marco arrived safe in Orlando (Fl) in order to attend the LEAD Conference of World Team Americas coming week.
Marjolein has been helping out in the family of Andre and Wimke in Delft, the Netherlands.
Given the circumstances things go quite well. Maurits swallows his medication and until so far he has little problems with narcoses and treatment. We experience Gods grace in all of this. His level of energy diminishes, but he plays around like a normal 3 year old and usually wakes up cheerful looking into the new day. It is great that most of his treatment is poly clinical so he can spend most of his time at home.
We now planed to stay in the Netherlands until April 6.
We thank you all for being involved. It is great to be surrounded by many people praying for all of us.
Marjolein and Marco