A letter from Amy Davisson Galetzka in Thailand
December 2012
Dear Friends,
Nadia Ruth
The song “Oh Happy Day” is a favorite of my husband’s and now has become a favorite of mine. As I was pregnant this year and in these past months as the due date grew closer, I have been thinking it’s a good theme song for our family. Encouraged to pick a song or something to focus on during labor, that was one that I thought of and believe describes the whole process of being pregnant and having our baby. There is new life in Jesus and a chance for a new start each day, and even each moment. I’m so thankful for that saving Grace and the only way I can imagine getting through this life is with Jesus and the joy and happiness He provides.
Our new joy is Nadia Ruth. She was born on October 17, at 1 pm, weighing 9 lbs, 4.5 ounces, 21 1/2 inches. We are so thankful for this gift from God and would definitely appreciate prayer for us to be good parents who show her God’s love every day. We chose the name Nadia because it means hopeful, and we chose Ruth because it is a family name and it is from the Bible.
As I was going through a long labor, I was thinking of the ladies in the jungles of Burma. I had a wonderful hospital, with easy access to all of the good doctors, nurses and emergency services that I would ever need. Some of the ladies in Burma (also known as Myanmar) have to walk hours over tough hills to even get to a clinic that may or may not have the care that they need. Because these ladies in the rural areas often live in places where they are displaced by the civil war, pregnant ladies have sometimes had to run away from their homes, with their small children, with their important possessions for survival in tow, and give birth in a hiding spot in the jungle.
Relief team medics and nurses I work with have sometimes been there to help these ladies give birth to their beloved little ones on a plastic sheet and blanket on the jungle floor. I can’t even imagine having to do that and I’m so thankful that the nurses and medics and brave people on the relief teams that I work with are there for those amazing ladies. Thinking of them during my own experience made me even more determined to continue to do all that I can to help that medical care continue in the crisis situation in Burma.
The Global Day of Prayer for Burma is coming up on March 10, 2013. If anyone would like more information and/or would like to participate, please let me know! I want to include a poignant article that is included in this year’s booklet. It is written by a doctor I work with. I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave me to work in Thailand and Burma. What a blessing and a joy, Oh Happy Day.
“God comes Alongside Us," by Dr. Kaw at the Jungle School of Medicine Kawthoolei. (Karen State, Burma):
Medics at work in Burma
"We had just finished evening rounds when they arrived, walking down the mountain path from a village several hours north. 'My baby won’t feed,' her mother explained. 'And she has been coughing for four days.' The 10-month-old girl lay, sweaty and weak, in her mother’s lap. We did the work all medics do, determining the diagnosis (severe pneumonia and dehydration) and picking the treatment (IV fluids and antibiotics, paracetamol for the fever). We satisfied ourselves that the child didn’t have malaria, started an IV, and calculated our doses. We pulled out our green bottle of oxygen, carried in over the mountains for just such an emergency. Placing the tubing under the baby’s nose, we turned the regulator knob and watched for a while, satisfied that we’d taken all the steps we could. We prayed together and I went off to bed, leaving the midwife, staff and students to care for her.
"I got up at 3 am to take my turn. Mars, glinting red on the black stage of the sky, hung above the jungle hills surrounding our school. As soon as I came into the hospital I heard the difference. The hiss of oxygen passing through its tube had diminished. I could barely hear it. I checked the regulator and saw that the bottle was nearly empty. I turned it off for a moment and, after explaining the situation to the staff, we turned it back on until it sputtered to a stop a few minutes later. No more oxygen, and a very ill infant. As we sat together around the parent and infant, we prayed. I thought of this girl’s life, stretched out ahead of her like the dark hills around us, one beyond the other. A village girl attending school … a teenager helping her parents farm the rice … a young bride … and becoming a mother herself. I prayed, 'God, don’t take those hills away from her. Don’t let it end here. Give her the gift that we can’t.'
Johnny, Amy and little Nadia
"In the dark the midwife helped another patient through a miscarriage. A boy with malaria woke up, cold in the final hour of night until his father built a fire behind the hospital and brought him out to warm up, wrapped in a blanket. We sat with our little girl, praying and watching as the sky slowly brightened. She began to cry, and the mother put her to her breast. She took it eagerly and was able to feed. I leaned back against the post and watched her doing what babies do, and knew that she had turned the corner.
"Over the following days she recovered fully and headed back up the path home with her mother and father. So often, when we have given the best we have, it still is not enough. But God sees, and comes alongside us, and brings His own hand of healing into our little hospital and the lives of our patients. And for that we are grateful.”
When I think of the love I have for Nadia, and the love this mother has for her daughter, I feel overwhelmed with all that I have. I want to use my freedom and abundance to help others have those same gifts.
Urgent Prayer Request:
You may have read about violence in western Burma. Please pray for the Rohingya people, as there has been increasing violence and marginalization for them in recent months. Our relief teams are trying to help those who are suffering in that area.
At this holiday season, I pray that you have all that you need in the Lord and that you are blessed with family, friends and all of the love God has for you.
God Bless you,
Amy Galetzka (for Johnny and Nadia too!)
Luke 2:10: Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.”
Luke 2:14: “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 183
The 2013 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 195
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