When was the last time you felt absolutely desperate? Something more intense than the overwhelming desire for a cool bottle of water on a hot, humid day, or even deeper than the need for the resolution of a conflict with someone close to you, or the solution to a financially devastating problem that will cost you your business.  

While part of a small medical team working with Lift Up the Vulnerable at New Life Ministries in South Sudan this summer, a father, his mother-in-law, and his small child were ushered in to see me. I was startled to hear this young man speaking English as he told me they had come some distance for his daughter to be seen in our makeshift clinic. He went on to say she was born with exstrophy of the bladder — a rare condition occurring during fetal development that results in the bladder forming outside the body on the lower abdomen. This leads to urine leaking continuously from this area, in addition to other problems. The parents were told at the time of birth that this could only be corrected by a specially trained surgeon hundreds of miles from South Sudan in Egypt or Kenya. 

Tears filled the eyes of this very petite 2-year-old South Sudanese girl as I tentatively lifted her little blue jumper to reveal the remarkably clean and well-cared-for deformity of her lower abdomen.

The family’s attention to hygiene had kept Agor free from bladder and kidney infections for the past two years, enabling her to survive this otherwise eventually lethal anomaly, a remarkable accomplishment given the lack of clean water and other necessities for chronic wound care.

 

I explained to the father that what they had been told was correct, and of course, without an operating room or pediatric urologist, we wouldn’t be able to help her at the clinic. Upon hearing this, the father looked at me with wide, expectant eyes and spoke words I will never forget:

“But doctor, you know we don’t have anyone to help — but you.”

Poverty, malnutrition and lack of basic medical care result in death being a part of everyday life in South Sudan. But this did not deter the father. The desperation that had compelled him to ensure that Agor was cared for in the best way he could, that drove him to travel for some days to our medical clinic with child in tow, was now unmistakable as he continued, “She is our only child, for whom we prayed, the only one to continue our family line…”. In my 40 years of clinical pediatric practice, I have never witnessed such urgency and desperation from a parent advocating for their child.  

For a moment, I was taken aback at my own faithlessness. Somehow, stepping outside my box to imagine how God might orchestrate a miracle had not been a consideration for me — until this father fervently appealed to me on behalf of his daughter. I couldn’t help but think of the man who did the same for his daughter, “…falling at Jesus’s feet and imploring him earnestly” to help his dying daughter (Mark 5:21-24). I told the father that we must pray for little Agor and ask God to provide the treatment that she couldn’t live without. We encircled the family and asked God to make a way…. 

For 20 years, LUV has been on the ground in one of the hardest places in the world, offering life to women and children. Through their assistance and the generous donation of a supporter, this little child is already on the way to receiving the surgery and treatment that will literally give her life. I am grateful to be a part of this mission to bring hope and life where no one else will go. 

Dr Joan Perry