Our own emergency flight

It was the golden hour. The cows and horses were nibbling grass on the runway and the chickens were getting their last minute snack in before bed, the world was quiet and peaceful- for a moment. Brad heard it before I did, the crying and shrieks of pain. He was out the door and running to where Lillia lay on the ground under some trees in our house. I wasn’t far behind him, when I reached their side I could see plainly that her forearm was no longer straight but certainly broken. I stayed with her while he ran to the clinic to get the nurse. She was in a lot of pain and coming to the realization that she couldn’t feel her fingers or move her arm. It looked so strange just lying there, unmoving. Our neighbor told me that he had seen it happen and surprisingly she hadn’t actually fallen from the tree but from a board that had been propped up against the tree. She later confirmed that was how it happened as we waited for the nurse to come.

The nurse confirmed that she would need to go to a hospital and get her arm set. She put a splint on it, gave her some medicine for the pain and Brad and two ladies carried her into the house. That night was rough. I chose to be on night duty since Brad had to get up early and fly her to a hospital.

In the morning as the sun was coming up, we put her on a backboard and loaded her up into the plane. Her arm had broken in such a way that it was hanging out away from her body and she wasn’t able to support it without having it set. One of the nurses went along as they normally do for a medial flight and by then the medicine had made the pain substantially less. With a prayer of protection and healing from our neighbor, the plane rose into the air and was off.

On this day there was a planned protest happening countrywide. Most of the times these protests happen, they are peaceful but they always include highway blockades and a mess of traffic. That was a concern on Brad’s mind as he was traveling. The night before, a friend reached out and offered to pick them up at the airport, so Brad wouldn’t have to figure out how to get a backboard into a taxi. Somewhere along the line, the vehicle turned into an ambulance picking them up at the airport so they would be able to get past blockades. As they drove to their first stop for an x-ray there was no sign of protesting yet and so they made speedy progress. The x-ray showed both bones in her forearm were badly broken and she would need surgery.

When they left that morning, they had no idea how long they would be gone or how long they would have to wait to see a doctor. Now was the question, when could they get a surgery scheduled? They spent several hours waiting to see when they could be seen by a surgen, would it be days? Our friend brought Brad food in the hospital, orchestrated transportation, called on his friends for references, and took great care of them. Around 2:00pm they had a doctor who agreed to see them in the hour. With our friend’s help they drove to a clinic where he would do the surgery. Sometime during the day the protests started and traffic was really bad, but God got them to their destination on time. Lillia was prepped, and off she went. An hour or so later she was done and was on her way to consciousness. She spent the night there and in the morning had a follow up x-ray.

Our friends opened their home to them to spend a day there before they traveled back to Rus Rus. I am so thankful for all of your prayers. I’m so thankful for our friends and their hospitality and eagerness to help. I’m thankful for the Doctor who was able to adjust his schedule to operate. God is such a mighty God! This little memoir is written so we can look back and see the majesty of God and how He blesses us.