Prayers for A

I have fallen face first in love........Yes, it’s true. Someone here in Africa has captured my heart. 

I call her Baby A, and she isn’t really that much of a baby, but a 4 year old beautiful girl. We admitted her on Monday for a biopsy for the tumor that is growing both inside and protruding out of her nose. The tumor has only been growing for five months, and she can no longer pass any air from her nasal passages. She was brought to us by her loving uncle, who until last night I thought was her father. This wonderful man has been taking care of her ever since the tumor started showing. Her mother is his youngest sister, and she doesn’t have the time to both care for her and make a living. Unfortunately like so many of the stories here, her father abandoned her when it started showing...Through it all though she is just a joyful little thing. From the minute I saw her and she gave me a wave with a twinkle in her eye, she stole my heart. Jonathan, one of the dayworkers actually started referring to her as my daughter yesterday because he doesn’t see us apart much. She spends her time playing and coloring while on my lap and pretending to type while I work on the computer for my charge nurse duties. She spends some quality time here and there strapped to my back, snuggling up as we fall fast into the rhythm of one another’s heartbeat. Yesterday we had a bit of praise for another patient on the ward and she was giggling from my back while I danced up a storm. She knows how to blow kisses, and just bats her eyelashes for anything she wants. She does this thing where she sighs, like its all just too exhausting, and thats when emotion bubbles up in me. Its just the same as the little boy in bed 6 that I told you about during the beginning of the outreach. This is the part where no matter what I do, I can’t save her. All I can do is love her, pray for her, and ask God to make her tumor something that we can change. She has so much love to give, and such a bright future and it wrecks me to know that these things may never happen for this beautiful girl. Last night after I put her to bed with a kiss and tucked her in just like my parents did for me when I was a kid it really hit me. This wonderful little girl may be labeled with an ugly word in the next 2 weeks: Cancer. Because she wouldn’t fall asleep and kept getting up and reaching for me I took an extra hour after my shift to snuggle her, to hold her close, and breathe words of life upon her. So there she sat on my lap, snuggled up with her legs wrapped around mine, rubbing my arm, and blowing kisses at my friend Jen. I can’t kiss her enough, love her enough, or tell her how wonderful she is enough. This is where I have to shrink back, give it up, know that My God has it in control, and that HE is the only thing that is enough. So please, if you can take a moment for Baby A over the next few days, just ask God to make this tumor something that we can surgically fix. Thanks for all the support you show this big hospital ship in Guinea, both I, Baby A, and all the other patients need you...