Since our last prayer/newsletter, we made a
trip back to the states after Charles’ sister in-
formed us that Charles’ 85 year old mother was
not doing well in a hospital in the Grand Rapids,
Michigan area. Charles’ father requested that
we return because of fears that Mom was pos-
sibly on her deathbed. We made quick arrange-
ments with our Deaf national church leaders to
continue the various ministries in our absences,
purchased round trip plane tickets on our zero
balanced MasterCard, packed our needed be-
longings, and departed South America for Mi-
ami on August 9th.
We thought that we would miss all our con-
necting flights to Michigan because of a 2 hour
mechanical repair delay at our South American
airport. Once we arrived in Miami, we thought
for sure we missed our flight to Atlanta. How-
ever, that flight was also delayed 2 hours and
35 minutes because of severe thunderstorms in
the Atlanta area. Then we thought for sure
we’d miss our connection in Atlanta to Grand
Rapids, but were surprised to find out that that
flight was also delayed due to all the previous
flight delays. So, we finally arrived 2 hours late
at 12:40 a.m. the next day (August 10th) instead
of 10:40 p.m. as originally scheduled.
After getting some much needed rest, we went
to the hospital about 10 a.m. to see Charles’
mom. She was sitting in a chair next to the bed
looking very weak and lethargic. When she
looked at us, she didn’t seem to recognize who
we were. Charles’ sister asked the doctor why
mom did not recognize Charles and Betty. The doctor reluctantly admitted that the medication
Charles’ mom was receiving was affecting her
mind and that they had made a mistake in admin-
istering the WRONG medication from a list Charles'
sister had given the hospital staff of what Charles’
mom could take and what she could not take.
Once they got the medicines corrected, Charles’
mom “came out of it” and was back to her normal
self again. Charles’ mom had been in one other
hospital for pneumonia, came home for one day,
and then back into a different hospital where
Charles’ sister found out that both hospitals had
made the same mistake in administering the
wrong medicines to Charles’ mom. However, we
praise the Lord that she is now home and seems to
be on the mend.
When we arrived back to our assignment in South
America, on August 21st, we had plenty of things to
do in order to “catch up”. Thanks for all of your
prayers and email notes of encouragement during
those uncertain days. Charles did catch a bad cold
while in Michigan, but is better now.
PRAYER REQUESTS:
1. Please pray for us as we travel to Mexico City
next week (September 2-8) to do some minis-
try work with some fellow missionaries to the
Deaf who serve with our organization.
2. Please pray for Betty and two hearing national
believers presenting the work among the DEAF
at a missions conference in “C” on August 31st.
3. Pray for us as we travel back to North Carolina
for a week of meetings with our Deaf leader-
ship team on October 1-6.
