A day like any other
When missionary Terry Reed heard a truck pull up to the gate, the family’s “normal” day came to an end.
A young man was looking for pain killers for his mother who hurt her knee. The dear believer had fallen and gashed her knee on a rock. Being afraid to get stitches, she decided to try to live with the pain. At Terry’s request, the woman was brought to the missionaries so she could be checked out in a cleaner environment.
Terry concluded that the huge gash would leave an incredibly ugly scar without some intervention. He decided it needed stitches, even though it had been more than 36 hours since the injury occurred.
“Unfortunately for her the only anesthetics we had on hand expired in 2007,” Terry wrote. “Emilia was very brave and tolerated more pain than most of us can stand. She nearly passed out several times, and she couldn’t help crying, but finally the anesthetic began to take effect and we were able to go to work stitching her up.”
Immediately after finishing that medical procedure and getting the woman on her way home, word came that one of the team’s goats went into labor.
“We use the goats for milk production to be used in soap that the Guarijíos are learning to manufacture,” Terry wrote.
Fellow missionary Dennis Bender, who has a long history with dairy cows, was available when the goat went into labor. The unborn goat’s head was bent backwards causing it to get stuck. Dennis and his wife, Machelle, tried for hours to save both baby and mother, but to no avail.
As the goat episode was taking place, elderly Bonifacio arrived in bad shape. Terry took a chair to the man who has had trouble walking for the past several years. The man was hungry and thirsty and didn’t have the strength to walk the last 100 feet to the Reed’s house.
After giving him food and water, Terry escorted him to the house.
“He told me that he lost the keys to the padlock on the door of his house, and was forced to spend the night outside,” Terry wrote.
Because of his difficulty walking, and having poor vision and no flashlight, he couldn’t go for help. He didn’t have a way to start a fire to keep himself warm, and though it wasn’t super cold, it was clearly a very hard night for him.
Terry was able to replace the lock on Bonifacio’s door, and keep an extra key just in case.
“Please pray for Bonifacio,” Terry asked. “He appears to be heading for the end of his race here on this earth, and is at the point of spending eternity with his Savior.”
“Days often don’t go as we imagine them to,” Terry concluded, “and at times it seems the whole world is crashing in on us, but we are glad that we are able to be here, and be a part of what God is doing among the Guarijíos.”