Charlie Smith – August, 2011 Prayer for Lauren

We take your desire to pray for us very seriously.  We thank you.  Last week Charlie sent out an email asking prayer for our daughter, Lauren, who is in Papua New Guinea.  She is having some health problems which at the first appeared to be resolving themselves after she discovered she was dehydrated.  She called us last night from Goroka, a town several hours away from the village, and is seeing a doctor in a medical facility there.  He is doing some testing on her, but at this point nothing is definitive as to what her medical problem might be.  They will be doing some thyroid tests as well, but those need to be sent out to Australia and the results will not be back for several weeks.  Please pray that the doctor will have wisdom in how to treat her.
   She is very weak, short of breath, terrible headache and has other symptoms as well.  It is very frustrating to her to not be able to exert even the littlest efforts in daily life, much less in a primitive setting where everything is done by hand, ie the laundry, etc.  The people there are very superstitious and if she returns to the village without a definitive diagnosis, especially involving  a prescription, they will say she has been ¨poisoned¨.  This is their way of saying having a spell put on her by someone.  She is very concerned with having the Lord be magnified in this situation and returning to being the active helpmeet she desires to be.
   Please continue also to pray for Charlie as he is teaching seminary students in a town 4 hours north of us this week and next.
  Thank you so much for your prayers on our behalf.  May God richly bless each of you .
JoAnn  for both of us
 
Charlie and JoAnn Smith
Buenos Aires, Argentina