Dear friends,
Outside our window overlooking west Amman a full moon is shining, but
within two hours Sunday dawn will break and a new work week will begin
in the Middle East.
Just across the Jordan River, our volunteers in Jerusalem will be seeking
this morning to transfer to the care of Israeli hospitals two Palestinian
newborns. They are in need of emergency lifesaving medical care which
is unavailable in their own hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
Baby Mohammed turns ten days old this morning. He became blue and gasping
after his birth, and Dr. Bashir Afana in the Khan Yunis hospital was just
able to diagnose his heart defect in time and stabilize him through medication.
The doctors of the "Save a Child's Heart" program in Israel
asked us to transfer Mohammed to them emergently when they heard of his
condition. With immediate intervention they believe his life can be saved.
God willing, volunteers Phil and Martha Berg will supervise his transfer
by ambulance this morning.
In the same Khan Yunis hospital lies another newborn boy named Juma. His
parents have five healthy girls, but all three of their previous sons
died in the first weeks of life from an undiagnosed metabolic disease.
Now Juma is suffering from the same symptoms that took his brothers. On
Thursday, after a two-and-a-half hour bureaucratic delay at the border
crossing, volunteer Elia Zweverink rushed Juma's blood and urine samples
to the orthodox Jewish "Shaare Zedek" ("Gates of Righteousness")
hospital in Jerusalem, where the country's best metabolic lab is based.
There Dr. Orly Elpeleg analyzed the samples without charge, as she's done
for many Palestinian children. She believes there is hope for Juma to
live if we can transfer him immediately to Jerusalem.
Because of the volunteer work of the Israeli doctors, the costs for attempting
to save these two children will be relatively low. For Mohammed's open-heart
surgery we are asked to contribute $2500. Juma's ICU hospitalization and
treatment, if we manage it wisely, could be even less.
I'm writing to you about these cases in real-time and in detail at the
request of the board and members of our non-profit association Shevet
Achim. At our annual meeting on December 31 it was felt that our practice
of not mentioning financial needs until a single, year-end message was
inadequate. We are still carrying commitments from last year's medical
care, and we have no funds on hand to help Mohammed and Juma today. We
want to do a better job of sharing with the followers of Jesus about these
opportunities to intervene and bring healing in the Middle East in his
name.
At the same time I know that the number of those receiving this message
is small. Virtually all of you are personal friends, and many of you have
been helping repeatedly for years. Perhaps as the Lord wills we can expand
the circle of those involved in helping these children, by forwarding
this message to friends, churches, or organizations who might join us
in "doing likewise" as the Good Samaritan. They can then request
to be kept informed in the future by writing me at jonathan@shevet.org.
Financial help can be sent to the offices listed below.
Please do pray with us that the mercy of God, which has so touched our
own lives, will on this new day touch the lives of Mohammed and Juma and
their families.
Yours faithfully for Jesus' sake,
Jonathan Miles
Board Chairman
Shevet Achim
