Please Pray for Job!

Dear Family and Friends, 21 July, 2009

I must take a minute to write to you and ask for prayer for a little one named, Job. We received a call early this morning to go and pick up a little newborn who had been abandoned in the bush.

Angie Butler, one of our short-termers, went with me to Grand Samba, a small village about 45 kilometers away from Yako. Along the way, Angie had asked whether the baby was a boy or girl and whether it already had a name. At this point, we did not even know if it was a boy or girl and I guessed that it probably did not have a name. So, Angie started thinking and praying about a name for the baby. When we arrived and found that he was a boy, Angie named him Job.

Job is a tiny, tiny newborn weighing 1.8 kilograms. He is a beautiful little boy but he was born prematurely.

Job had been abandoned by his mother probably immediately after birth. We are guessing that his mama is probably not well mentally and may not have even known what was happening to her. He was found near a water source by a little boy. This little boy went and got his father and they took Job to the police station in the nearest town. The police took Job to the local maternity ward and then called us to see if we could take the baby.

This evening Angie and I made the trip to Ouagadougou with Job and have admitted him to the neonatal ward at 'Five Friends Hospital. Besides being so small, Job is highly susceptible to infection because when he arrived at the maternity ward he was covered with flies and insects. This afternoon, there were small worm-like things crawling out of Job's ears and nose. Our local hospital in Yako gave us a referral to the neonatal ward here in Ouaga.

Please pray for Job:
- that this infestation of whatever he has will be cleared up
- that all of his little organs and lungs are completely developed
- that the formula available here agrees with him and that he begins to gain weight
- that either a family comes forward saying that Job is theirs and that they want him or that he is very quickly released for adoption