Dear friends,
Majid, the young man from northern Iraq with a long-neglected congenital heart defect, has now arrived in Jordan, but his promised visa to Israel for surgery has again been delayed.
Here is a report from our volunteer Dirk, who is hosting Majid in his home:
After dinner I sat with him and his dad for a while and they told me about their life in Kirkuk and their hopes and fears. "What kind of Islam is this?!" the father said, referring to the 4 hours wait at the border in the cold and rain. Since then Majid has been cold frequently, suddenly he begins to shake and continues to do so even though wrapped in a heap of blankets with his father rubbing his shoulders and body. We kneeled at his bed and prayed for him and he prayed with us, both he and his father were obviously very happy with the love we were sharing. He felt better after the prayer and smiled. He´s a very nice, friendly young man, just extremely weak. Just before their departure from Kirkuk he had blood extracted, usually they used to do this about once a month. He did get cold like this also while at home, it’s just a sign of his bad heart condition. Please pray for his visa to get through.
Our nurse practitioner Jen (who leaves Jordan on Friday with six Iraqi children for India) added the following after visiting Majid:
When I first saw Majid this morning he was under many layers of clothes and huddled around the propane heater trying to stop shivering. As I looked at how many blankets and sweaters he had on, my first instinct was that he had a fever. But no, his temp was 37.2 [Celsius]... practically perfect, praise the Lord! So I found another blanket to cover him with and was astonished to see his clubbed fingernails so blue. He was alert and oriented, smiling and interacting, which eased my concern in many ways. His smile is gentle and melts your heart, even with the cyanosis of his lips. When Amy and I came to see him tonight, it was a different story. He was laying in bed under lots of covers, shaking, and moaning. I brought over an adult blood pressure cuff and my stethoscope just to get a basic baseline on him, but his arms are emaciated. His father and I struggled in vain to get the cuff on his arm, I could almost double the cuff around his bicep and obviously could not get any sort of pressure on him. Besides a fast and irregular heartbeat everything else seemed ok. With nothing left to do, Dirk, Amy, and I placed our hands on him and prayed. The Lord is the greatest of all physicians, and His arms around Majid is the only thing that will make a difference in this entire journey. After we prayed his breathing was still labored and he was still weak, but his moaning ceased and his eyes opened wide and his smile, wider. He thanked us and his father did too. Majid at least had enough strength to say goodnight and be interactive once again. Prayer is the only thing that is going to help Majid right now. The longest and hardest part of his journey has yet to come.
Finally, from Shoshi in our Jerusalem office, a request for little Ashraf from Gaza (pictured below), now hospitalized in Israel:
Hello everyone! Please be praying for Ashraf Hussein Mukbil (right). He is a 4 year old child who came from Gaza for an evaluation a week and a half ago. He has a heart condition that requires catheterization, but on arrival at Wolfson Hospital had pneumonia. He is in the intensive care unit at the moment, fighting for his life, and has not yet been catheterized. His mother is with him, and his father has asked to be invited to see him as well (we are inviting him for this Sunday). Thank you!!
