Excerpt

We lived outside a small village near the desert, and I carried on a simple, daily first-aid clinic for people from the surrounding areas. It was a privilege to put my love into action by dispensing pills for fevers and dysentery, cleaning and bandaging infections, treating dog bites, burns, scorpion stings, sore eyes, pulling teeth and delivering babies. Patients were always ready to sit and listen to the gospel message of God's love.

There was a school on our mission compound, and after classes the children lined up at my door for medicine. They had a variety of ills: serious dog bites, infected and ears, festered sores. Flies fed en mass on oozing pus outlining the sticky lashes of children's swollen eyes. One little boy had a big lump on the top of his head. While I was cleaning it, maggots began crawling out.

When he was two years old, our son Danny developed sore eyes, probably due to the inevitable filth of flies that carried the germs from children who were infected. I treated him with everything in my medicine chest, but when his eyes swelled shut completely, it was time to find a good doctor. It would be a long, exhausting journey but my helper, a sweet Indian Christian named Prem, which means 'love,' agreed to accompany me.

We got up at three-thirty a.m. to catch the four o'clock train. The night was dark, and we had to pick our way over the rough clods and clumps of a ploughed field. The houseboy, carrying our luggage and supplies, stumbled and dropped the thermos of boiled water. Quickly he snatched it up because the train was coming, and we hurried across the railroad tracks to the station.

After we were settled in a compartment and the train started, I noticed a big louse crawling in Danny's blond hair. That was not at all surprising. I'd had lots of experience demolishing the pesky creatures.

Soon it was time to prepare breakfast. I pulled out the old thermos, opened it, and was horrified to find the glass lining in a heap of shattered fragments! What could I do? How could I mix powdered milk and cereal for my little child without hot, boiled water? The situation appeared utterly hopeless.

However, dear, wise Prem was not a bit perturbed. She said cheerfully and with confidence, "Don't worry, Madam Sahib, I'll find water."

At the next stop, a small station where the train only stayed three minutes, she took Danny's cup and left the compartment. What in the world is she up to? How does she think she can possibly find any hot, sterile water in this deserted place? My thoughts and questions were chaotic.

When the whistle blew and the train began to move, I panicked. How could I feed my baby when there was no way to mix his cereal? I felt absolutely helpless.

It is precisely at our point of need that God does what seems impossible and proves His miraculous power on our behalf!

Just in the nick of time, in climbed Prem. I gasped, "Where were you?"

She handed me Danny's cup, filled with steaming water, and replied, "It's boiled, Madam Sahib."

I knew there had not been enough time for her to ask a tea vendor to light his little kerosene cook stove, put water on and boil it properly. It could not possibly be pure enough to use.

"How? Where did you get it?"

"From the steam engine!"

Amazed and tremendously relieved, I thanked her profusely. I would never have thought of such a convenient, available supply. What a sweet, clever, resourceful woman! God certainly gave her the wisdom to act promptly. Our situation had seemed absolutely hopeless, a solution impossible, yet He provided exactly what we needed, when we needed it, in a delightfully unique way. Little did I realize that He would do it a second time--the very next day!

We boarded a second train in the big city for the next segment of the trip. Arriving at our destination, we rented a horse and buggy to take us to the Irish Presbyterian mission hospital. It was late in the afternoon, and the doctor was summoned. After he examined Danny he said, "Tomorrow morning an eye specialist will be arriving from Bombay. He visits us only one day every month. You've come at precisely the right time!"

Here we were, ready for the very day when that dedicated doctor made his long, tiring overnight journey of four hundred miles to come and treat patients in this small Christian hospital. God had timed our arrival perfectly! What relief I felt when Danny's eyes were expertly medicated. By the time we returned home, our little boy's sight was nearly back to normal.