The sound of a heart monitor beeps while a ventilator keeps the lungs of one-year-old Mark Andreas' breathing in fresh oxygen. It's heartbreaking to see his small body laying on bed in Miri General Hospital.
On Monday and Tuesday I, along with one of my YWAM team-mates, Julianne, visited Mark Andreas and his mother, Anna. The boy has been in hospital for one month essentially on palliative care. The doctors aren't sure what's wrong other than the fact that Mark Andreas' muscles and nerves stopped working properly.
We found out about this little boy after meeting one of his older sisters in the Bantu Niah SIB church the previous weekend. She asked us to pray for her brother, whom she said the doctors believe have no hope of living. Once back in Miri, Julianne and I began visiting the hospital.
We must look quite bizarre; me a curly-haired Canadian and Julianne with her reddish-blond Norwegian looks showing up to a Malaysian hospital. Luckily we have a friend here who works in the ER so she was able to bring us. The building is a sprawling low-rise with covered outdoor hallways. The first day we visited the hospital, my first reaction was that I'd walked into a Caribbean resort. But that was just on the outside.
Once inside the hallways and rooms are quite simple, even dingy. Female nurses with Muslim head coverings sit at the station right inside the pediatric ward. As we walk the halls I can see small children lying in giant hospital beds. A door reads "Do not enter. Chemotherapy in progress." My heart breaks.
We find the room where Mark Andreas is staying. It's no bigger than most living rooms, with five beds. Each bed with a tiny patient and family members nearby. At least one parent lives at the hospital with their child. So Anna, Mark Andreas' mother, has been living at Miri hospital for one month as an additional caregiver to her son. At home, she has seven other children. She understands our English but finds it hard to answer. So she speaks Malay to our doctor friend who then interprets for us.
Anna asks that we pray for her son. Julianne does with tears rolling down her face. I pray for Anna the first and second day that God will show more of Himself to her during this difficult time. And Anna asks that we pray for her faith so it will not be shaken by this trying time. She tells me in English that 'nothing is impossible with God'. How interesting that an angel tells Mary those very words that Anna, a mother herself, is clinging to.
The second visit, Anna tells me that she prays Psalm 91 over Mark Andreas from her Malay language bible. I ask if I can pray over the boy in English. So as I sit at his eye level and read/pray from my bible, Mark Andreas' eyes follow mine from the page to his face and that back to the page again. I want to cry. He's so small, but his eyes are so big and strong. Anna tells me that Mark Andreas' loved to watch Western cartoon when he was still healthy.
I'm praying for a miracle. But God, please forgive me my unbelief. I know God is a healer and that Jesus says we can ask for anything in His name it will be done. But as I watch the rise and fall of Mark Andreas' chest, I can't help but wonder if God will in fact heal him. It would be such a glorious testimony in that hospital to see a clinging-to-life baby regain strength and the ability to breath on his own.
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Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
and show him my salvation.” Psalm 91:14-16 (NIV)
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