1996

I think I was still wearing flannel shirts in 1996 & listening to Nirvana at high school basketball camp.  I probably still had bangs that I curled up every day before school.  I had just gotten my driver's license & was working at a coffee shop.  I remember seeing "Forrest Gump" and "Independence Day" at the drive in movie theater that summer.  It was before cell phones & internet were big, before long distance was free, before dvds, before ipods, before Chipotle burritos!  

But half way around the world that year, a woman named Ntombi had a life changing experience by stumbling into a fire.  I have heard a couple of versions of her story, but don't know really what happened to her to make her body appear like she has CP or had a stroke.  What her father told me when I met him back in 2009 was that something happened to her to make her body more disabled, and shortly after that she stumbled into the fire & burned her foot.  They live more than 5 miles from a paved road, with no transportation themselves, so it was up to their primitive living to try to keep her wound clean so it would heal.

So much has happened in my life since 1996 - graduations from high school, college, seminary.  Serving in ministry in a few different places, watching both of my sisters get married & having 5 nieces & nephews.  Moving to Denver & buying a condo.  Watching our world change as 9/11 happened & technology continued to grow so quickly.  In some ways it seems like 1996 was just yesterday & I was just 16...but it was 16 years ago...half of my life so far.

And while the world was changing & growing & experiencing so much, Ntombi's life didn't change much at all.  Her family continued to live on their homestead at the base of the mountain, her father farming, raising animals & providing for her family.  Ntombi sitting in the dirt, unable to move much & crippled by whatever happened to her & the burn on her foot.  Day after day went by, year after year went by & nothing much changed.  

In 2009, when I met Ntombi for the first time, I thought she was a 12 year old boy.  I saw her wound treated by a traveling doctor that fall, but then didn't know what happened to her until I came back to visit her this fall...two years later.  Unfortunately, her wound hadn't been cared for & had grown from the size of a large coin to the size of a baseball, caving in the side of her foot & causing her toes to be distorted.  We brought her down to the clinic, but there wasn't much more that the nurse could do besides clean it to prevent infection.  The wound was so deep & broad that it would take much more than any of us could provide to help it heal.

Cleaning the wound & changing the dressing last week.

Our ministry partners have gone back at least once a week since then to change the dressing on her wound & there have been nurses on teams that have cared for her wound...but it's all changing TODAY!  We have made the decision to take Ntombi to the hospital today & are praying that the doctors can somehow help her wound to close.

As I sat at her homestead the other day, amidst the pigs, goats, chickens, & donkeys, overlooking the vast valley, we made a plan with her father on how we would get her to the hospital.  He said, up to us it is not going to happen, but we know that God is in this & we pray for the wound to heal so that she can have her joy & her smile back. 

Something happened in 1996 to Ntombi that changed her life.  I will never know the details to that story (unless maybe she & I can sit & have coffee in heaven, with her able to speak & both of us understanding one another), but God willing, something will happen in 2012 that will change her life & she will be free of pain & suffering in her foot & able to live joyfully again.