father

What a day.  We are so tired.  After not sleeping much last night, and then a full day of hospital for Matt and ups and downs...

I just can't stop glowing His praises.  I'm not totally sure how to organize all the information of the day, but there were some patches where hope look extinguished.

Things don't work the same here as what you might be used to.  When they arrived at the hospital, after she'd been in labor for 24 hours, and paid a doctor to look at Kerline, and the doctor agreed she needed a C-section, he wrote her out a list of everything she needed and turned them out to the waiting room.  If she wanted anesthesia, they had to go and find it and buy it.  If she wanted meds, stitches, needles, tools, cleaners, all of it...they had to go buy it.  If she wanted a life-saving C-section, she would have to go buy it.

I cringe to realize that if she HADn't been able to buy those things, she could have died in that waiting room.  That people who need help and are dying...DIE.  In waiting rooms of hospitals for lack of money.

Then they kept putting it off and off and off...lunch break, waiting for a doctor to come in, etc.  They finally took her in for surgery, Matt and Maxi waiting anxiously in the maternity ward (surrounded by--when described by Matt--a very dramatic, large, completely naked and in pain group of very hot and very pregnant women...oh, the stories), thinking she is in surgery, only to have a nurse emerge almost an hour later, saying that they needed sanitized water and a sanitized container for it to continue.

When Matt called me, LITERALLY walking around down-town Cap-Haitien in the blazing sun, trying to find and buy CLEAN WATER for Kerline who may have actually been IN THE MIDDLE of surgery...I mean.  It seemed that surely all was lost.

And then there she is.

It seems weird that tonight, Maxi's still having a hard time getting his head around being a DADDY.  But after all he went through today?  And all he has gone through for all of these years?  And all of the times he convinced himself joy in spite of the fact that he would NEVER be a dad?

maxi's first look at his baby girl

Yeah, it's going to take awhile.

They got precious ti-Kristie out right away, and she is doing GREAT.  But when they got into Kerline, they said they were shocked by the huge amounts of scar tissue and irregular scarring she has.  The "massacre", as the doctors described it, from three years ago has her internally so damaged that they were stunned at how this pregnancy ended with a healthy baby girl.  She remained in surgery long after the baby came, the doctor saying that stitching her up was incredibly difficult due to all the scarring.

Needless to say, she is in a LOT of pain tonight, and I'm asking for your continued prayers for NO infection and for healing.  When we spoke to Maxi tonight, he said he had just been to buy more pain medication for her, and she was finally sleeping.

On this side of the day, I'm in awe of a what a miracle took place.  Becoming pregnant against so many odds, a growing baby for 40 weeks despite all her scarring, and a healthy delivery today despite so many hardships?

I know every baby is a miracle.

But Kristi?  She. Is.

To top it all off, I was really blessed tonight when our fellow missionary body, excited to no end at beautiful Kristi, left prayer meeting.  Despite the dozens of requests for help I know they are ALL getting right now, several generously tucked bills in my hand as they left to help Maxi pay for the hospital bill and surgery, and I was so touched by that.

Thank you again for all of your prayers and emails and encouragements.

Praise the Lord, God of the Universe, Maker of Heaven and Earth.  Knitter.  Creator.

And Father.

Just like Maxi.