Have you ever thanked God for locking your Keys in the car?

I can pretty much guarantee that we have all done it, but I bet that very few people will ever be as grateful as I am for leaving the keys lying on the seat.

Now when it happened I can honestly say that I was not happy, if fact the word frustrated comes to mind.

We had just finished our weekly food shopping for the kitchen. We had gotten up at 5:15 to leave the house at 6:00. All of the above mentioned times are followed by the letters A.M. As anyone who knows me at all would testify mornings are just not my thing. We have to get to the market so early to get the freshest produce. Yes, it is a giant pain but I love knowing our little ones are eating the best food that we can provide for them. This morning we also had a guest shopper. Jen Wright from Casa was checking out the market to compare quality and prices on a number of things.

We had arrived and we had shopped. We were loading the truck and preparing to head to the deli for the meat when Evilyn told us she had locked the keys in the truck.

Well Jen’s truck was not to be broken into by armatures and I can assure everyone by our feeble attempts that we are all armatures. So I get the task of calling Randy to go and get the spare keys. As any wife will tell you you never want to call your husband and say the keys are in the car and it is locked. It never goes real well (voice of experience, I miss AAA) I love the question, “Why did you do that? or What were you thinking?” “I don’t know, maybe because I enjoy these little phone conversations? ” Randy was all the way in Mololoa and had to drive up to the house and then back down to the market. It took about an hour and a half. Jen W. had her truck and we made a trip to the Deli so it wasn’t a total waste of time. We got everything we needed (including the keys) loaded up and headed to the kitchen.

When we get there we carry it all to the kitchen. I was putting up some food when Claudia (a very young mother of two) came up to me. She looked stressed and tired; she was holding her youngest in her arms, two month old Jeremiah. He is a very tiny little boy with the sweetest little face. I ask her how she was and she said she was bad. I ask her why?

She said, “I need you to help me, my baby is dieing.” Tears started to roll down her face.

I ask what was wrong and I looked at the little guy. He looked horrible, his skin was a sickly yellow color, black circles under his eyes and his head was just lolling to the side. She told me he was ill and had not eaten in three days. This baby was only four pounds at birth and he hasn’t gained much since. He is so tiny and he was so listless I knew we had to go to the hospital right away. He tried to cry and was so weak that he sounded like a little kitty meowing.

We race to the emergency room and I took her inside. At the hospitals here you spend more time waiting in line for papers to see the doctor than you do seeing the doctor. It takes forever to see anyone. We went up to a man and he asks where she was from and what was wrong so he could direct us to the proper line. He looked up and saw the baby; he grabbed us and rushed us to the back room. A doctor came running took the baby from the nurse who said,
“This baby is almost dead.”

Claudia fell apart, she began to cry and shake all over. They started to work on the baby who was hysterical. Claudia could not comfort the little guy at all. I was standing next to her trying to hold her up and we were standing at the baby’s head. I was talking to him and lifting him up in prayer. I was so frightened I could not even think of the words to pray and just kept thinking Jesus knows what my heart wants to say, what my mind could not put into words.

The doctor had someone come to draw blood and start an I.V. He could not find any veins because he was so little and so dehydrated. He poked his little hand and the baby tried to cry and jerked his whole little body. It was so pitiful. After the blood he tried to start an I.V. it was horrible. First of all those are big needles. I know that have special needles for little bitty babies but I don’t think they have them here. He cleaned his foot, wrapped a rubber glove around his tiny leg and tried his foot. I had to hold is other foot down while he was poking around. I was speaking to the little guy and rubbing his little head; he was watching me with pain filled eyes and making those little meowing sounds. My heart broke a million times. No luck on the first foot or the second, he tried a hand and then back to the foot. Finally the left hand had a vein he could use. I thanked God. I know it had to be done, but holding that fragile little body to be poked again and again made me feel horrible. I was sick at my stomach and sick in my heart.

He began to get fluids and started looking better right away. Claudia began to calm down and stayed with the baby while I had to go pay for the blood test (5 limps $.25, yes the . is supposed to be there), deliver the blood to the lab and then go and look through all for the papers to find his results. Next I delivered them to the doctor. (I will tell you about the hospital later) I sent Katrina with a friend to buy diapers and wipes for Jeremiah because you have to supply all of your babies needs or they will not be taken care of and Claudia did not have the money for the doctor much less diapers.

After about three hours of being watched in the ER he was sent to another “baby ER” room with about 4 others. He was to be admitted and test run. He was already much better looking. I bought some food to leave with the mother, and gave her about five dollars to have for a taxi to and from the hospital and for food for her other child (a one year old) that was with a neighbor, but needed food for the next day or so.

So I was picking up Randy when everything finally caught up to me and I began to cry. I was glad to have been there and glad to have helped, but it was really hard. I know that sometimes we are to be sacrificial in our giving and sometimes that hurts. This was a very pain filled day. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I started thinking how close we came to losing little Jeremiah. So very close. If the keys had not been locked in the car I would have left the church and hour or so earlier. That hour made the difference between life and death. So I feel very blessed to have been locked out of the car Saturday morning.