It started off as a normal Sabbath. Then, as I was about to leave to pick up people and take them to church, I got a call from Fidel’s phone. It was Andre calling to tell me that he and Fidel had been on the motorcycle headed to the village when they’d had an accident. Now they were in a taxi on their way to the hospital.
I grabbed some money from the house and hurried through my pickup rounds. After dropping the members at church, I drove to the hospital, which isn’t very far away. I found Fidel groaning in pain with a large wound in his leg. I waited for the doctor to arrive so I could talk with him. Then I took Andre and another friend to collect the motorcycle and take it to our house. Andre’s foot was injured and needed some attention, so I put some betadine and a compress on it and wrapped it up.
When we got back to the hospital, Fidel’s leg had been stitched up, and he was ready for an x-ray, which was delayed another hour because they were cleaning the room. After the x-ray as we were sitting by Fidel’s bed, a sister from the church whose brother was in the hospital stopped by to visit. Church had just finished, so most of the adult members soon arrived to visit Fidel. Then I went with the group to visit the lady’s brother. As we were walking back to Fidel’s room, we met a lady I know from Natitingou, and she told me that her son was in the hospital with typhoid fever. So three of us trouped in and visited him. I prayed for him and then went back to Fidel.
The people I had taken to church that morning needed rides home, so I left the hospital and did those rounds. When I got back to the hospital, the doctor was with Fidel, and he gave me a prescription for Fidel’s pain meds. I went to town to fill the prescription, then I returned and helped Fidel into the truck for the drive home. At our house, he leaned on me and hobbled into the living room where I pulled out the hide-a-bed from our couch. I got him medicated for pain and then made dinner since neither of us had eaten since our small breakfast. Then it was time for me to leave again to the spiritual-gifts test I was giving at the church. I couldn’t find my keys, so I raced around the house looking only to find them safely in the fanny pack I was wearing!
The spiritual-gifts test was complicated by the fact that three quarters of the members are illiterate and don’t know how to hold a pencil. But they managed, and three hours later we finished the 20-question test and discussion of the gifts.
As we were leaving, a lady asked for my help with her car’s electric window, which wasn’t going up. We pushed and pulled and tried both switches and then looked at the engine because a dashboard light was on. Everything was okay, so we returned to the window problem. Then God gave me the idea to wiggle the wires that went from the body to the door, and voila! The window went up. Then I took the members home again.
At our house, I got all the dogs, cats and chickens fed, and the hens and their chicks into the nest boxes to protect them from owls and the rain we were hoping would come to break the heat. At 9 p.m. it was 100 degrees in the house—quite a bit cooler than during the day.
I made a wheelchair for my husband from a dolly and a metal sheet with a chair tied on top. Hopefully we will be able to find some crutches for him. We were very thankful to God that his injury was just a flesh wound and did not break any bones.
