The Patient Who Lived

THE CALL: 2024-2025    |    2.5 MINUTE READ
DR. PETER & LYDIA PILGRIM, CREATIVE ACCESS GLOBAL WORKERS

Due to the sensitive area these global workers are serving in, we are using pseudonyms in order to protect their identity. 

“I never knew God worked like this.”

We heard Silas speak these words at the weekly medical intern Bible study.

One week earlier I had been visiting the pediatric wards with Joyce, one of Tenwek’s chaplains. Over the course of a couple of hours, we sang “Asante Yesu” (“Thank You Jesus”) in the numerous tribal languages spoken by families on the wards, shared how nothing is impossible with God, and did some crafts with the kids. Then Joyce turned to me and said, “We need to see Jedidah.”

Silas (far right) with part of the Tenwek pediatric team

A heaviness settled in the back of my chest. In the seven years our family has been at Tenwek, it has not gotten any easier for me to shift from folding paper cranes and beading many-hued bracelets on the general pediatric wards to visiting the debilitatingly ill children in the ICU. And that was where Jedidah was.

Jedidah had been admitted to the hospital for several weeks. She and her brother had both been brought to Tenwek lethargic and listless after a stomach bug went on to trigger a response in their bodies causing inflammation in their brains and hearts. They had lain side-by-side in their ICU beds, their mom swinging between them on a rolling stool.

After two weeks, Jedidah’s brother’s heart had given out. Her mom no longer swung between two beds but remained steadfast beside her daughter.

As we made our way upstairs Joyce said to me, “We need to pray for Jedidah and for her mother, because tomorrow the team is going to extubate her.”

Often, extubation—removing the breathing tube from a patient—is cause for celebration of recovery. But for Jedidah this was not the case. It had become apparent that further intervention for this sweet, nine-month-old girl was futile.

When we entered the ICU, Jedidah was lying in the first bed on the left. She had a tube down her throat and multiple lines in her arms and legs. Despite not being on sedating medications, she was not fighting or resisting these obtrusive devices. Her eyes were slightly open and not tracking. As we prayed and held her hands, there was no response. It was clear that it was only machines maintaining life.

That day we had two high school girls with us who were visiting to serve at Tenwek for a couple of weeks. They led us as we sang “How Great Is Our God,” and I remember thinking, “This is it, Lord. I don’t know what else to pray for Jedidah, for her mom, for the team. But I do know this: how great is our God.”

The next day the team took the breathing tube out. And Jedidah breathed.

The next day, Jedidah was unresponsive, but she continued to breathe.

The next week, her eyelids began to flutter, and she would shift her small body away if poked or tickled.

Jedidah’s was not a take-up-your-mat-and-walk, instantaneous healing, but it was miraculous nonetheless. This child’s brain and heart, which had been ravaged—and which, according to all objective measures, were not functioning—began to wake up.

Her eyes would now follow you across the room. Then she smiled. Then she sat up. And at Jedidah’s going home party she fed herself (and the entire pediatric team!) cake.

Chaplain Joyce Lokol holding baby Jedidah (left) Jedidah and her mom at their home after discharge (right)

“I never knew God worked like this.”

The interns had been praying every week for Jedidah. Every morning during the pediatric team’s devotions, Silas would pray for Jedidah.

After her seemingly inexplicable recovery, and now as he works post-internship with the pediatric team at Tenwek, Silas tells us that Jedidah’s illness and life and the prayers surrounding both have made him realize that God is still working in miraculous ways, that He is able to accomplish infinitely more than all we ask or imagine.

To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.  Ephesians 3:20–21 (NIV)

ACTION STEP

PRAY: Jedidah’s story is just one of the many ways we’ve seen God show up in response to the prayers of His people. We believe that He will continue to listen and move as we pray. Will you pray bold prayers with us, asking God to do great things for His glory?