Today we got the news that our daughter, Annika, has blood clots both in one calf and in her lungs. As we speak, she is being admitted to hospital for these conditions.
Annika was healed miraculously while we were ministering in South Africa. And we know that the God who healed her at that time has not changed an iota. As you can imagine, this is a difficult time for us, as parents, to be far from her. Lydia and Nathan are looking at how to surround Annika with the love of our family at this time. And Annika's boyfriend, Rudi, is with her. We are looking at the possibility of whether Christine can return to the States. But this is complicated both by the flights disturbances I have mentioned below, and visa considerations.
It has been over a month since we last wrote. We wish we could say that things have gotten better for people in Eastern Congo, but that is simply not the case. One of our goals has always been to work ourselves out of a job. Unfortunately Medair's business is booming right now. We are adding new emergency responses every week in order to respond to the movement of people. We have health centers which we were supporting (as we have written about) which have been overtaken by the fighting, looted and everyone has fled. And so we are trying to support health facilities in the new areas to which the health staff have also fled, along with the displaced persons.
It is disheartening to see the suffering.
Along with the ongoing displacement of people due to fighting, in the last 2 weeks a UN helicopter was shot at, the pilot died immediately, and the co-pilot had to crash land the helicopter. We are thankful that there was not more loss of life, but the family of the pilot is is grieving this loss. On Sunday another helicopter was shot at, prompting the UN to cancel all flights. No one was hurt. Flights (at least of planes) have restarted again. But this helicopter on Sunday is one that our staff would use to return from a field location where there is currently no road access. So Medair is having to evaluate what to do about these staff at this time.
We really appreciate your prayers at this time. The One who hears the groaning of our hearts when we don't have words to pray, hears your prayers. And we are thankful.
Phil & Christine
