God is so good to us every day:

     The way He provides for us to keep working in His field year after year and meets all our needs:  thank you for being a part of that!

      The way He puts prayers in His people's hearts to pray for us:  thank you for being a part of that!

       The way He keeps encouraging us:  thank you for being a part of that!

       The way He works through His Body to spread the Gospel:  thank you for being a part of that!

God is also just so good to each one of His children the way He carries them through the trials and hardships and dangers of this life and we want to tell you about how good He was to Chariza (we took this picture of her singing in the Lapoc church last April when she was 3 months pregnant) last month through a huge trial that she had.

Chariza is one of the children who grew up in the Lapoc church. She became a believer in Jesus at a young age, was baptized and when she finished high school, she became one of the scripture teachers in the schools and also helped us on the Translation team. About a year and a half ago she was married to the love of her life, a fellow believer in Jesus called Momoyama and after some time they were excited to find out they were expecting. Last month they were looking forward to the birth of their first baby and one morning a couple of weeks before her due date, after eating some fruit out in her yard with her husband and mother, Chariza's head suddenly began to hurt. She got up and said, "I'm going to go inside and lie down." Her husband got up too and left for the farm and her Mum went off to visit a family in the next village who had just lost a loved one.

What neither of them knew was that Chariza never made it to her bed. She had collapsed on the floor just inside and everything had suddenly gone black. Still conscious, she tried to call for help but her voice wouldn't come out and no one could hear her silent screams. She couldn't see as she had suddenly lost her vision and she couldn't move. She lay on the dirt (their house hadn't been finished yet and didn't have a floor) for a couple of hours unable to move until noon when her married sister dropped by and found her. Her sister ran to the farm to call Momoyama and together they carried Chariza to the bed and cleaned her up and tried to give her something to eat and drink which she really couldn't get down. By then she was spitting up some blood and Momoyama was panicking and so was her sister and they had no idea what to do.

Their Mum arrived back at 5 pm and as soon as she saw Chariza she ran to Lapoc for help and came back an hour later with WingWing and our 4WD that is used to transport the scripture teachers, along with Nanah and Annx2, two of our team who we trained as health workers in the Clinic and who we gave midwifery training to as well.

  

They diagnosed Chariza as having pre-ecclampsia and cared for her during the long two hour ride out to the hospital. During that ride, Chariza still couldn't see, her blood pressure was sky high, she was falling in and out of consciousness and attending to her was extremely difficult in the cramped space of the vehicle. Only 30 minutes into the trip, she had a massive convulsion, a massive haemorrhage from her mouth and she stopped breathing. Moyomaya cried out in despair, "She's gone, she's gone...." and began to sob heart wrenching cries because he thought his wife was dead.  Nanah and Annx2 called out to God for help and He heard their prayers and they began to feel a pulse and to see Chariza taking tiny, shallow breaths and they made it to the hospital where she was put on an IV, given injections and after two more massive convulsions and 40 minutes trying to stabilize her, she was taken by ambulance to another hospital an hour away for an emergency C-section.  

Today Chariza is back home with a beautiful, healthy baby boy, her vision has returned, her body has healed......it is another of God's amazing goodnesses! God chooses how each of our stories will end, but one thing is always the same - His goodness! "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Psalm 23:6.