A Letter

At the moment I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Steve's been suffering with infections/boils for a while now. It can get into your body here, stick around, and erupt again even after antibiotics. He had a really high fever a few days ago and got a horrendous, very painful infection under the skin on his upper leg worse than I've ever seen. And I have a scar on my leg bigger than an American quarter from just the eye of a boil once in Fiji!

He's been on antibiotics for a few days and has started a second one as well. While he probably still has a few painful days ahead, it's finally moving towards healing. Thank you, Father! It's that in between phase of not knowing if things are going to get worse or not before they get better that gets to me......

The last 6 months or so while great in many ways have also been draining with sicknesses in our family; repeated viral infection on the tongue, the usual stomach stuff that happens here, a seizure, Chickun Gunya, anemia, colds and flu, asthma, boils. There have only been short periods where everyone has been well.

I'm pretty easy going about lots of things, but don't always deal well with my family being sick. Especially when it's weird, out of the box stuff and we're skeptical of the local doctors.

I had a unique encouragement yesterday, however. There's a sweet, older lady in NZ who doesn't have email but who wants to hear from us because she faithfully remembers us. A friend prints off our emails and forwards them to her. She occasionally writes us long, newsy, and always encouraging old-fashioned letters in return and sends them all the way here to us.

At the end of last week one of her letters arrived. It was a busy day and I set the letter aside to read when I had a few minutes to enjoy it. She'd been ill for a long time, but yesterday we got the news that she had died.

I still hadn't read her letter.

I carefully opened the aerogram and sat down to read. It wasn't anything specific that she said but her words of fa1th washed over me. She spoke of her own joys and trials and spoke directly to the last things she had heard about us. She reminded us that 'all things work together for the good.' And told us that she remembered us often.

Her very last words to us were, "May G0d continue to watch over you all and keep you in His care always. May your journey continue under the Master's supervision."

Sickness or health, easy or hard, stretched or comfortable, He watches and cares and we are under His supervision. And works it all together for the good.