Abandoned-Orphaned (Paul Myhill)

Not Very Original

Please lift up missionary families all over the world who are being targeted by the similar influenza and pneumonia issues as we just experienced with Hannah…

From Doug and Brooke Burns in Costa Rica (yesterday):

Satan is not all that original but he tries hard.  Interestingly, all four of us in our family had a very severe and sudden case of influenza/pneumonia that we battled over a month.  Two very important trips regarding ministry were cancelled.  I have been convinced it was Satan. I have heard of several other missionary families from around the world affected with the same thing!  It is a battle and what a blessing to be in FAMILY together to fight together.

From Ron and Lisa Redell in Macedonia (today):

Please join us in praying for our littlest one. Kalina (16 mo) woke up on Saturday with a fever and kept it most of the weekend.  Her other symptoms were heavy breathing and a runny nose.  And one incident of throwing up.  She didn't eat or drink much and slept most of the time.  We were thinking some kind of virus, so this morning (Monday) Ron took her to the doctor in Skopje and the doctor said her lungs were clear but prescribed an antiboitic as a precaution.  This afternoon after her nap Ron noticed a new symptom, that her hands were swollen and her fingernails were purple underneath.  He took her right away to another hospital where they gave her some meds for her fever (spiked to 104 while there). Then she had an xray and was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Her right lung is 2/3 full and her blood counts are really high.

From a World Orphans board member, concerning the grandson of some mutual friends that used to serve as missionaries in Germany (a few days ago):

I hope your family is better. We also have a prayer request. Remmie Beitel (you know the grandparents) is in the hospital in Tulsa with double pneumonia and flu. He seems to have multiple infections and is in ICU at St. Francis Children's Hospital in Tulsa. He is a very sick little boy.

Dodging Bullets (Hannah & Trevor)

Sometimes you don't want to know the dangerous reality of a situation until it's over. Hannah's Staph infection we were told about yesterday was actually MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus.) According to WebMD, "MRSA is sometimes called a "super bug" because it's so hard to treat." The doctor told us that almost 50% of pediatric deaths related to an influenza and bacterial co-infection are because of the presence of MRSA. Glad they held onto that factoid until after she got through it!

Hannah may never know how many bullets she dodged.

Drum roll please...

Hannah is now back at home, undergoing self-administered (by us, that is) respiratory therapy and a continued regime of multiple antibiotics! She'll need another chest x-ray in a couple of weeks and won't fully recover for three months or so but, heck, she's at home and running around!

Before discharge, the doctor talked about four markers that gauge whether the battle is being won. "We don't often get all four things moving in the right direction at the same time, especially only after a few days," he said, "but in Hannah's case that's what has happened and she's as 'fixed' as we can get her here at the hospital."

There is a chance that the highly-dense areas of lung infection might cause scaring and problems later. We'll appreciate your continued prayers for the many weeks of healing ahead.

Meanwhile, Trevor's surgery went extremely well yesterday. According to Scott, Trev's cheekbone was broken in multiple places and had collapsed in by over 3/4 of an inch. His upper jaw was broken into layered chips "like cornflakes." Multiple plates were inserted to repair the cheekbone, ocular bone and jaw. In addition, the doctors had to rebuild part of his sinus cavity.

The bleeding on Trevor's brain was deemed to not be serious and therefore didn't require surgery. Another bullet dodged. Obviously, ongoing prayer is needed in that regard and for Trevor's overall healing. Trevor is numb from his lip up to his eye on the side of his face that took the impact of the bat. The doctor has said that this numbness is likely permanent. We pray that it is not.

Scott wrote in an update e-mail that "Trevor is a tough, brave kid. His teammates visited him last night and one of them told his mom, "Trevor didn't even cry.""

Trevor is definitely a special kid. He traveled to India with us last year. I witnessed a heart and spiritual maturity that are rare indeed for such a young teenager. We pray that these latest battle scars only help to shape his fine character and provide numerous ministry opportunities in his bright future.

“It Could’ve Gone Either Way” (Hannah)

Last night, a third doctor visited Hannah in room 5102. He would later admit that he couldn't find her chart before entering, but had seen her initial labwork. He was expecting to see "a very, very sick girl" but, upon opening the door and hearing a giggle, "knew that she was going to be ok."

The physician mentioned that two doors down from us there is a little boy who was admitted a couple of days before Hannah. The boy is suffering from the same unholy trinity of Influenza, Pneumonia and Strep (although we found out today that Hannah also had a Staph infection on top of everything else.) Unlike Hannah, however, this boy has been "getting progressively worse each day" and his medical team is running out of options. Over 35,000 people in the US die each year from the Influenza/Pneumonia combo and the doctor matter-of-factly said that Hannah "could've gone either way" based on the severity of her first readings.

Clearly upset that the little boy isn't responding well to a similar treatment, the physician continued by saying, "We don't know why one gets better and one gets worse."

Lisa quickly piped in with a loving grin, "Well, we know why Hannah is getting better."

Without responding, the doctor looked at Lisa inquisitively.

Lisa continued, "Ever since Hannah was admitted four days ago, we've had people all over the world praying for her."

We thank you for that and now ask you to pray for the unknown boy on the fifth floor.

And while you're at it, pray for the hundreds of thousands of people who will die this year from flu-related causes in the developing world simply because they don't have access to such good medical care…and prayers.

More Attacks (Trevor in Hospital)

I honestly believe that on the trip that Scott, Mike and I just took to China, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma, we trod on ground that Satan had aggressively claimed for himself. After all, there are few things worse than seeing 12 year-old girls sold into sexual slavery, 10 year-old boys forced to serve as child soldiers, and infants thrown onto trash heaps. It's the type of territory that the enemy wants to strongly control and protect.

As I type these words, I have a daughter on the 5th floor of Skyridge Medical Center in Lone Tree, CO. My mother-in-law is on the 6th floor. And, as of 20 minutes ago, Scott's son is on the 1st floor after taking a bat to the face during baseball practice. His cheekbone and ocular bone are shattered, plus he has a hematoma (bruise) on his brain. He's on morphine and is being presently scheduled for surgery.

Please pray for all our families. The battle we fight is against powers, principalities and rulers of darkness in this lost and hurting world.

Progress (Hannah Myhill in Hospital)

Hannah has certainly made some significant progress. The doctors, nurses and therapists have been amazed at the turn-a-round that has occurred. They are just now revealing to us how truly concerned they initially were.

The latest chest x-ray shows that Hannah's pneumonia is less dense, but its broad coverage throughout her lungs is about the same. As a result, we've been told that this will probably be a five-day stretch in the hospital, with a discharge hopefully occurring on Sunday.

We would appreciate your continued prayers.

A Smile (Hannah Myhill in Hospital)

A smile. It said it all. Amazing how a smile changes everything. When I saw the corners of her mouth go up, I knew Hannah was on the mend.

A few minutes later the doctor came in and said the labs looked much better and that surgery was not likely. We'll still have to wait for more tests and the chest x-ray tomorrow, but we are quite encouraged by the developments.

Thanks for the outpouring of prayer. We know it's the big difference maker!

 

Trifecta (Hannah Myhill in Hospital)

Our three year-old daughter, Hannah, is currently hospitalized with Flu, Strep and a "serious case of pneumonia" covering most of her lungs. According to her doctor, "Hannah has a 50/50 chance of needing lung surgery to get out the puss."

This trifecta of ills was initially misdiagnosed as a virus because Hannah was inoculated against the Flu a couple of months ago using the FluMist immunization. FluMist is supposedly the most effective against influenza's main strains and so the thought to test didn't enter the doctor's mind. My wife, Lisa, was told instead that we simply needed to administer alternating doses of Tylenol and Motrin to combat the 104 to 104.5 degree temps Hannah was suffering from. In short, she needed to just "sweat it out."

After four days of these brutally-high temps occurring throughout the day and night, Hannah was finally admitted into the hospital. Only then did the reality of the situation become clear.

We also care for Lisa's 84 year-old mother who was checked into the same hospital late on Saturday night with a severe flare up related to her Crohn's Disease. She is currently on the floor above Hannah and, like Hannah, we don't know the ultimate outcome and when she'll be released.

Earlier that same day, Lisa also had to go to Urgent Care for severe dizziness, fever, nausea, and chest pains. She was actually throwing up as the ambulance arrived to pick up her mother at midnight. By the next day our other kiddos, Faith, Caleb, and 11 month-old Naomi, also had fevers.

All these situations started as I returned from China and Southeast Asia on Saturday night. It was an exceptionally successful trip in which tremendous doors of ministry opened up for World Orphans. It's therefore not lost on us that our current situation has a spiritual element to it. After all, the enemy isn't too excited about us saving orphaned and abandoned children in previously-restricted countries like China. And he's not too excited about us rescuing children from the sex trade in Cambodia. In that respect, we actually take these current sufferings as an affirmation that God is up to something good!

Most of the family is slowly recuperating, but our Hannah Banana is still in need of much prayer. She's usually our red-headed spitfire, full of wit and personality. Now, she's just a fatigued little girl who is very frightened. She's also scared and uncomfortable about the "giant needle tube" in her arm.

My first concerns are, of course, for my baby girl. But such things also turn my thoughts to millions of children who suffer in the developing world and the 28,000 children who will die there today from things that are easily treatable in the West. According to the World Health Organization, even influenza still takes perhaps 500,000 lives per year.

And so, as I hold my daughter's hand in a very well-equipped hospital with state-of-the-art equipment and training, I wonder about children fighting 105-degree fevers in squalid huts, or on the flotilla of refugee homes on the polluted Mekong River.

...And I also think about those millions of children who don't have somebody to hold their hand.

Poverty Porn

Admittedly, my blog posts from Southeast Asia have been sobering indeed. But I have never shied away from telling it like it is, have I?

In yesterday's Huffington Post, the leader of an interfaith orphan ministry criticized the motion picture Slumdog Millionaire as "poverty porn" because of the movie's great financial success without a corresponding commitment by the filmmakers to alleviate issues of poverty. I certainly don't know all the details about the filmmakers' hearts or financial contributions but, if true, I would concur with the writer's comments. There is an obligation to not just show or dramatize poverty, but to be an agent of change, especially if profiting from such depictions.

However, I do take exception when the writer states that his orphan organization "has a policy never to show children in need or distress." He instead chooses to portray "children after, not before or current.'' He continues by stating that "Sally Struthers can stroll though the garbage dumps of the world showing you pathetic children, but this is truly pornographic. My organization will not stoop so low."

I think this is taking the analogy too far and, quite frankly, is misguided and condescending.

More than one billion people live in urban slums today. That's over 15% of the world's population and doesn't count families living in rural-poverty equivalents. More than half of the world lives on less than $2 per day and one-third of urban dwellers have no access to safe drinking water! Did you really understand that...or did you just skim over the words like I often do? Over 3 billion people will make $2 or less today while we try to decide whether to add a shot of vanilla into our $4 lattes.

Severe poverty is rampant and, yet, we are safely entombed in our comfortable bubble of isolation and denial in the West. Believe me, our current economic crisis is a joke compared to the living conditions of most people struggling to survive in the world today.

Yes, let's please show the images and tell the stories of happiness and improvement, but the reality is that the Church in the West needs a wakeup call; it needs to be radically shaken by the sad realities of this world. Much like the Gospel that the Western Church is also prone to water down, we need to understand the bad news (sin, separation and death) in order to truly understand the good news (reconciliation, transformation and life). We focus on being blessed instead of being a sacrifice, of fulfilling self instead of dying to self. We focus on being at ease instead of being afflicted by the needs and conditions of others.

I never thought of myself as a pornographer before, but so be it.

Street Vendors

On the flight from Bangkok to Tokyo, I managed to get an upgrade and sat in the first-row aisle, upper-deck of the packed 747-400.

"Would any of you like a coffee?" the pretty Thai stewardess asked the captain and first officer as they went through their pre-flight preparations. Both said they did.

The first officer, a short middle-aged guy sporting an awkward bouffant hairstyle to presumably add to his stature, handed the flight attendant two Starbucks travel cups and jokingly said, "Don't mix them up. I don't want to catch something." She then left to get the pilots their java.

"Yes, I wouldn't want you to get anything I got from a street vendor," the captain retorted.

"Oh, is that what they call her these days? I've heard them called many things, but never street vendors," replied his colleague with a chuckle.

The flight attendant returned to serve the American flyboys (no disrespect intended), unaware that other young Asian women, not as fortunate as herself, had become the subject of jovial banter during her absence.

On our last night in Bangkok we journeyed into Patpong, an infamous district with a sprawling night market and burrows of sex-for-sale holes adorned with doormen, dancers, bar girls and scantily-clad hostesses who lure in passersby with promises of a good time. As we walked the temporary stores lining the sidewalks and alleyways, men popped out of doorways to show us "menus" for sex acts and shows, as well as photos of available women.

Topless dancers wriggled against mirrored walls on raised stages strategically placed next to flung-open doors so shoppers could intentionally or inadvertently get a view. Turn your head to look away from one, and you were intrusively faced with another. Loud music pumped into the streets with a bone-vibrating pulse that sounded like drumbeats from hell. One club, aptly named "Lucifer's" welcomed patrons into a den of women with a depiction of the one who snatches such young lives and dreams.

Dozens of men walked around the warren of vendor stalls holding small signs inscribed with the words "Sex DVD's." Each sign most likely represented some girl sold into the sex trade and entrapped behind closed doors with a choice between a camera or a beating. How many more videos are being made right here, right now? I thought to myself.

Meanwhile, a bevy of Europeans – men and women, young and old – haggled for trinkets and T-shirts from the roadside vendors, unmoved by the degradation and enslavement of women all around them.

After all, it's just something else for sale on the streets of Bangkok.

Dispensing Beauty

As we sat in the car, a man in his sixties, accompanied by another who looked as if he could be his adult son, emerged from a narrow alley hand-in-hand with two young prostitutes in their early teens. The alley separated a beauty salon from its next-door neighbor, one of many seedy brothels in the area.

The salon is run by a teenage girl, Mai (not her real name), from the Vietnamese community in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Mai was given the opportunity to attend a church-run school and became a believer at a young age. But at 12, she was sold by her grandmother to a brothel for $300. Her new owners locked her up and beat her for several days before selling her virginity to an Asian-background Australian who wanted to "deflower" her. He would later pay for her two more times, but only under the condition that no other man had slept with her since. Mai had begged her grandmother to not sell her, just as her mother before her had also pleaded, but it did no good. For the grandmother, the money was just too tempting, considering that many in their community make less than $1 per day.

One report states that Mai was forced to eventually service twelve to fifteen men per day. It's a small wonder that she never contracted HIV/AIDS like many of the other girls sold into prostitution in Southeast Asia.

It's unclear how Mai eventually ended up back at her grandmother's small slum home. Regardless, she was resolute about showing love to her grandmother despite the great injustice she suffered at her hands. Mai extended grace and forgiveness daily and lived out a life exemplifying the hope within her.

An American missionary heard Mai's story and became determined to find her. After a few trips, he located her and offered her a job at the salon, a place specifically set up to prevent or rescue Vietnamese girls from the Cambodian sex trade.

Today, seven girls work at the salon doing hair, makeup, and nails for a clientele mainly comprised of the local prostitutes. Salon workers ministering to sex workers. When I visited, these seven teenage girls had just finished watching a local soap on TV and were delving into a personal time of Bible study while awaiting their next customers. In her leadership role at the salon, Mai mentors the other girls professionally and spiritually. She is a sweet, demure girl with a gentle spirit and warm countenance. Her delightful smile betrays the horror she has endured.

The American missionary eventually had the opportunity to meet Mai's grandmother. He told us that he wasn't sure how he would react – whether he would bite his tongue and be cordial or spit in her face with anger. As he went to shake her hand he silently prayed, Father, please put the fear of God into this woman. As their hands met in a clasp, the grandmother became visibly shaken and broke down in confession that she had wronged Mai and her mother.

Through this encounter and the continual loving forgiveness showed by Mai, the grandmother fully repented of selling her daughter and granddaughter, accepted Christ, and serves faithfully in the local church.

Mai, wise beyond her years, is thankful for the experience. "Without it," she says, "I would not be able to minister to the girls that come into the shop." Beauty from ashes indeed.

The salon truly does dispense beauty...the kind that only comes from within and a dependence on the One who is with us through the trials.