Searching for Understanding

This is Mlamuli. My internship is at the hospital mostly in the abandoned baby ward. Mlamuli is one the babies in the ward. He is 3 years old we think. He was found locked in a house all by himself. No one knows how long he was there alone. He is extremely malnourished. He came to the hospital with a huge hard bloated belly. When he first arrived on January 2^nd, he was malnourished so of course he was sick but other then that he seemed okay. I met him in the end of January when a few of my teammates and I went to the hospital. He was sitting up in his crib chomping down on a piece of bread. You could tell that Mlamuli was a neglected baby because he didn’t really love being cuddled. He would let you hold him on your lap but he didn’t want any of that sissy baby stuff of rubbing his back or kissing on him or trying to hold his hand. He would weakly push you away with his arms. He was sick but we had hope that since he was getting to eat regularly now that he would start getting better. Time went on and as I said last week I was sick for awhile so I missed one day of going to the hospital. Amber and I went back to the hospital last Tuesday and were shocked at the shape we found him in. We arrive there at about 8 in the morning so that we can help the caregivers get the babies out of bed and feed them breakfast, when we got there Mlamuli was lying in his bed with an IV in his arm and his sheets soaking wet. Amber went to him, he started whimpering and holding his arms out to her. She picked him up but he continued to keep whimpering and he was reaching towards the table where he could see some bowls of food. We asked the night caretaker if she knew what was wrong and if he really was that hungry and she told us that he had been throwing up so they just weren’t giving him food to solve the problem. We immediately asked if we could have something for him to eat and she brought us some milk like substance. He drank down that milk so fast, he was so hungry. A little while later the doctor made his rounds and came to see him. He was angry at the state he found him in and decided that he needed to be moved out of the abandoned baby ward and to one of the rooms with sick children so that he would be less likely to be forgotten. He was moved and Amber and I decided we would try to stay with him as much as possible to see to it that he was fed and taken care of. We started doing around 10 hour days at the hospital we would leave our house at 6:30 in the morning at stay at the hospital until it was time to come home for dinner at night. It was up and down, one hour he would seem better and the next he would seem worse. Friday he was awake all day fighting with us. One of the doctors noticed his breathing was labored and decided to give him oxygen, Mlamuli was not happy about the oxygen hose being up his nose and would try to rip it out every chance he got. Amber and I had to take shifts sitting next to his bed monitoring what he was doing with his hands so that he didn’t have the chance to rip it out. Evening came though and we had to go home. When we left he was awake, fighting the oxygen, eating at every opportunity he had, and being his normal ‘mad at you for touching him but not wanting you to leave him’ self. We came back the next morning at 6:30 and he was asleep. They other Mom’s around us told us they had heard the nurses say his temperature went up to 41 degrees Celsius during the night (which is like 103 or 4 degrees Fairenheight) We couldn’t wake him up anymore but we weren’t sure if they had given him some medicine to make him sleep. We just started out our day by sitting with him. His nurses came and went but they didn’t seem to think anything of him sleeping so much. Our whole team came to do ministry at the hospital later that day and they spent some time with us and him. Finally his doctor came and decided that he needed a feeding tube so we could be sure he was getting his nourishment every hour. I had noticed his feet were freezing cold even though the top of his body was hot and I asked the doctor what he thought but he said it was just because he was malnourished and didn’t have enough fat in his body to stay warm. Also I asked him if he had an infection and he said yes he did but they never did any investigating to find out what and where the infection was in his body. Two hours later the rest of our team had left so it was just me and Amber still sitting with Mlamuli, we noticed his left arm started twitching but once again I told a nurse and she dismissed it. Amber and I were so tired so as he was sleeping, I was sitting on the bench across from the bed with my head down kind of praying for him and resting and Amber was on the chair next to his crib reading her Bible. She looked up to check on him and he was no longer breathing. She yelled at me and I jumped up to check him and she went running out of the room looking for a nurse. I moved him to open his airway and checked for a pulse but he was already gone. The nurses came and took him to another room but came back in like 10 seconds and just said “I’m sorry.” All the other Mother’s in the room with their sick children were just staring at us. They don’t really understand us and why we care so much about a little boy that isn’t ours but we do. I could hardly hold myself together. We left the hospital maybe 5 minutes later because there was nothing left for us to do. We couldn’t stop crying and no one knew what to think of us. So now here I am, this is my story of Mlaumi and I don’t know what to think anymore. I trust the Lord and know that it is all in His plan but it is so hard. We didn’t know him for long but when you become the person fighting for the child’s well being, talking to the doctors, sitting by his bedside for hours somehow he becomes yours and now he’s gone. I’m glad he is with Jesus and he doesn’t have pain anymore. And I know that Amber and I were sent there to spend his last few days with him so that he didn’t have to be alone but once again it’s just so hard. So, my prayer request this week is that you ask God to grant me understanding and heal the brokenness and confusion that is growing in my heart. I long to be able to fully trust His ways but when push comes to shove, I’m just lost.