[Guyana-Mission-Report] Called from the Pulpit

Yesterday I was preaching a message at the new little Adventist Church in Shea when a young lady appeared at the back of the church and started waiving her hands animatedly.  It was the wife of my translator, so he quietly excused himself to go see what was the matter.  I tried to continue my sermon without translation, but by this time my train of thought was pretty well derailed.  A minute or two later he whispered in my ear, "There's a medical emergency in Marurinau and they need the airplane to fly the patient to the hospital".  Question to you - What would you do in this situation?  Do you continue preaching and finish your sermon hoping the patient doesn't die on you?  Or do you leave your audience hanging mid-sentence and race out the door?  I tried to strike a happy medium, closing off the message in a few well placed sentences, and with a closing prayer.  I must admit that it wasn't the smoothest conclusion, but it worked - and people understood The young girl who came to inform us had run the 5 miles from Marurinau to Shea.  Fortunately and the kids with her didn't have to run back because we covered the 5 miles in 2 1/2 minutes. The man was elderly (late 60's), had lost a fair amount of blood, had bloody saliva, and was feeling cold in his lower extremities (possible shock).  Joy sent me off with some IV supplies to start an IV, because someone had said that a nurse might be at the airstrip.  As it turned out she didn't show up.  Looking around at the villagers I could see the tense look in the faces of people who came to see the patient off.  They were deeply concerned that he might not make it.  One of the villagers turned to me and said, "We're sorry to bother you on your Sabbath".  I looked him in the eye and as convincing as I could be said, "Hey... That's why we're here...  We're here to serve.  It doesn't matter what day it is".  After the patient and his wife were strapped in, I debated what to do.  I couldn't raise either of the two hospitals on the HF radio.  So I decided to go to the field hospital in Aishalton since they could get an IV going and monitor his condition.  The only problem is how to alert them I'm coming? I decided to fly over the hospital and circle it until someone decided to come out.  Othere than a couple construction/maintenance workers who were milling around, it looked pretty desolate.  A couple minutes after I landed, the Medex showed up on his motorbike to find out what was going on.  I told him about the patient, and after assessing him he decided to keep him for the night.  Today we transported the same patient out to Lethem to the main hospital.  Please pray for Valentine P. Not too long ago I had another interesting experience.  Here in Guyana, the air regulations state that in order to be able to fly into an airstrip in the interior, you must first fly into the airstrip with another experienced pilot who has been there before.  Every time our chief pilot Gary Roberts comes to Guyana we try to train on new airstrips so that we can increase the reach of our ministry.  Anyway, not long ago I was getting a new airstrip checkouts to Achwib and Sowariwau.   The airstrips weren't particularly difficult, and we finished the checkout back in Shea.  That evening Joy and I packed up our stuff and flew to Lethem. The next morning my cell phone began to ring.  It was the Lethem hospital stating that there was an emergency in Achwib Village.  A young man had gotten his face sliced open in a drunken fight, and was needing to be flown out. Immediately we responded by flying to the field hospital in Aishalton to pick up the field doctor before flying the 15 minutes to Achwib.  The boy had a huge gash on his left jaw, nearly down to the bone.  By the time we landed a huge number of people were standing around watching.  The doctor immediately started an IV on him and started doing an assessment of the injury.  Fortunately the knife hadn't cut any nerves or tendons.  It was basically a stich job.  So back to the hospital we went where the boy would be sutured up.  The next day the doctor told me that the wound had sutured up nice, and the boy would only have a thin little line to remind him of what had happened that night.   We don't know when the call might come.  But God does, and its experiences like this that serve as reminders that the Lord is only but a step in front of us. Must fly some boxes of medications to Aishalton, and then back to Shea. God bless, James James & Joy Ash 121 Durban Backlands Georgetown, Guyana 011-592-629-5141 http://guyanaaviationevangelism.blogspot.com/ James & Joy Ash Gospel Ministries International Project Name: Guyana Aviation Evangelism 874 South McDonald SW McDonald, TN 37353 1 (423) 473-1841 or 1 (423) 473-1842