The Goodwin Family Adventures: Onto Another Country- February 7, 2016

This post was written on February 7, but I wasn't able to post it until we were out of the country. We are now back in Kona, and soon back home to Canada. I have written another post about this nation that I will be posting in a few days :)

We made it to our next country! I am not going to name to country online just to be extra sure to guard the identities of the missionaries we met there. If you are curious, feel free to send me an email or PM and I will tell you, but if you know, please don't mention it in the comments :) This is a beautiful country, but very different from Thailand. The first things that you notice right away when you cross the boarder is that the landscape is much more sparse. There are not nearly as many buildings as in Thailand and there are very few western brands and labels (such as 7eleven which is all over Thailand!). You can also tell that there is much more poverty here and that life in general is a lot simpler for the majority of people. If Thailand is a land of dogs (they are EVERYWHERE) then this nation is a land of cows! As we were driving to our destination city we saw so many wild cows roaming the streets- the kids loved it!

The border crossing

Since arriving we have been blessed by the amazing hospitality of our host and translator. We didn’t quite know what to expect since it can sometimes be difficult to work with local people due to security issues, but it seems like the city we are in is more open than many so we are getting to have amazing experiences here with our local hosts.

So far we have done prayer walks of the city and of the university campus. The campus here is very basic- a bunch of buildings spread out over a large property (with many roaming cows!)- very different from our western university campuses!

Jonah allowed us to have another interesting cultural experience when he came down with a crazy blistery rash that covered his face, arms and legs. We decided we needed to take him to the doctor because it seemed to be getting worse, although he didn’t have a fever and was acting like his happy, normal self. Our local friends took us to a clinic and when we arrived there was no one else waiting in line and the doctor was lying on a mat doing something on her phone. She sat up when we arrived and took us into a side room where she very quickly looked at Jonah’s welts. Our translator then told us that the doctor believed it was an allergic reaction to some sort of bug bite and then prescribed us a few different medicines. She gave us a few pills of prednisone, split in half (apparently a child’s dose?), and a bottle of antibiotic. The bottle was only a quarter full so she proceeded to take her open water bottle that was on the counter and pour some water into it to dilute it! She then charged us $15 and sent us on our merry way. Our hosts were surprised that the visit was so expensive, and said that if we had gone to a public hospital it would have been much cheaper.

This whole experience definitely left me so thankful for our Canadian health care system. It also hit me in the face how scary traveling with little kids can be and how much I need to trust God and remember that He is the one who called us to do this. Praise God, I never let fear take over, but I realized that my thoughts were going that direction and that I needed to call on the Lord for protection for Jonah and wisdom for me as his mother to know what to do. After having a detailed consultation with a friend’s friend who is a western paediatrician on the phone, we discovered that the doctor’s diagnosis was likely accurate and she had actually given us good medicine, despite using an open water bottle to dilute the medicine without carefully measuring it! Jonah is doing much better and the rash is clearing up well.

Today we had the amazing experience of going to a local church in a small village. The Tuk Tuk ride took about an hour and we got a flat tire along the way, but it was well worth it! Jonah had fallen asleep when the flat tire hit, so when we all got out while the driver fixed it, I was just holding him in my arms. We happened to break down in front of a family’s home. Some of the members were just hanging out and a few of the women were laying out some sort of root vegetable on mats so they could dry in the sun. There were many children, middle aged adults and elderly people all just hanging out and working as a family. The father was also holding a baby about the same age as Jonah. I said hi to them and they all smiled and kind of stared at our spectacle of a flat tire! But as I held sleeping Jonah and watched the other father holding his sleeping baby, it was a good reminder that God made ALL people in his image and that everyone is precious in his sight, worthy of respect and dignity. I live a vastly different life than these people live day in and day out, but we both hold our babies when they are sleeping and enjoy how precious they are at that age.

When we finally made it to the church we were greeted by such a warm welcome! The service had already begun and people were singing at the front, but we were greeted with such lovely smiles. Our team was able to sing a few worship songs, and then I shared a testimony of God’s ability to restore relationships through the story of my marriage to Jody. I really felt the Lord saying that this was something the congregation needed to hear. It was a privilege to be among Christians who are counting the cost to follow Jesus in a nation where being a Christian is not looked upon fondly.

At the end of the service I was able to spend time and chat with some of the ladies with the help of our translator- one who was nursing a two year old. Her daughter would walk up to her, lift up her shirt and have her fill of as much milk as she wanted. No one around was phased by this even though the woman’s breasts were completely exposed. She was asking me if I fed my baby with my breasts and I said of course! All the ladies laughed and were very happy to hear that. I think they assume that western women only use formula. The more we talked the woman let me know that she had 9 children, two of whom had died as infants. This was another stark reminder of how different my western life is. This nation has a high infant mortality rate and you could tell it was almost a normal occurrence among these woman to have an infant or two die. Yet still, we both nurse our babies, and struggle with the challenges of raising little ones. I wish you could have been in the village with me to experience the sight of piglets running around, the scent of hot sticky rice cooking, and the sounds of local Christians praising our great and awesome God, but here are some pictures to give you a bit of a better idea: