Warm Heads All Around

As many of you know, Karanda is the major provider of surgical management of hydrocephalus in Zimbabwe. Consequentially, better than half of the kids in the pediatric ward suffer from hydrocephalus (literally too much "water on the brain"). Sometimes these kids come to us from nearby, but most of the time they come from far away. We even get kiddos from neighboring countries, such as Botswana, coming to us. More often than not, the children and their families have been put off for months by larger hospitals. I guess most neurosurgeons prefer doing back surgery on paying customers. As you can imagine the cost of surgery, a mere 200 dollars, seems onerous to a peasant farmer with a disabled child. Sometimes, by the time a baby gets to us, his head is the size of a watermelon- so heavy that he cannot hold it up. The sheer weight of it often causes sores to develop on the side of the head most often laid upon.

Before we left the US, a lady from my parent's church hand made a bunch of beautiful stocking caps for us to give away. Our previous experience here left us with more memories of sweating than shivering. So, though we were thankful for the donation, we were a little unsure of how useful they would be. Recently, we've learned that Zim can be colder at night than we realized. I've often shivered during the middle-of-the-night trek into the hospital on call nights, even while wrapped up in a fleece jacket. The winter chill is easily in the 40's. This is REALLY, REALLY cold to an African. Even during the day, I'll see guys walking around in puffy down-filled winter jackets and stocking caps- while we're in short sleeves. Most of the children in the Ped's Ward have very few warm clothes. So, unbeknownst to us, stocking caps were the perfect gift. Some of the hats the lady made were very small and some were very large - big enough for any adult. Amazingly, we found a head to match each hat, from the tiny premie heads, to the over-sized hydrocephs. Even better, we somehow had the exact number of hats as children in the hospital - not one less or any extra! I love seeing God's provision in simple matters. It's truly a privilege to experience God's goodness with our family, and for Abbi to learn this first hand. The mothers were very thankful, and the children are now warm!