India
- Michael & Grace Browne
- Oct 11, 2012
- 3 min read
Written by Michael & Grace Browne
Grace has been rather unwell with an intensification of her Parkinson's symptoms. Caring for her, and taking her for hospital appointments and treatment, gives me less time for correspondence and other personal activities. Grace is scheduled for laser eye surgery but this is only successful if the patient can be absolutely immobile during the operation but she has quite severe dyskinesia (involuntary body movement) for most of the time. Her surgeon is consulting a colleague but says he is willing to 'have a go.' I too had been rather unwell and was admitted to hospital where I was treated for a mild stroke (TIA, transient ischemic attack) and for which I was admitted immediately to the acute strokes unit of the local Bath hospital. I had various scans and tests which are all fine including a CT brain scan which showed normal, with no damage. I am feeling much better now but the attack left me rather tired. I discontinued all speaking engagements for a month, although still continuing to care daily for Grace, but am back to normal again, taking local meetings. Currently I am going through Lev. 23, The Feasts of Jehovah, in our home assembly.
There is one item of news from India for which we request your prayers concerning the new Bethesda hospital in Thane (Bombay). Our brother, Dr. Stephen Alfred, recently wrote, "The new hospital is packed. You will be surprised to see it so full. We never imagined it this way, especially the radiotherapy department, and are finding it very difficult to say 'no' to the patients, especially those who cannot afford to pay. We are the only free and low cost charitable radiotherapy set-up in the area. This is the unit that is making heavy losses in spite of the patient load, as most patients just cannot afford the cost, but we trust that the Lord will provide. This is one issue that we did not foresee before we started it. We can run it with profit, but then will have to say NO to a number of poor people for whom the unit was put in the first place. Do pray that the Lord will give us wisdom to suitably run this hospital.
Dr. Alfred and the hospital team treat all full-time assembly workers anywhere in India, who have surgical needs, absolutely free - and there is a strong gospel testimony associated with the hospital witness. Souls have been saved and added to the Thane assembly.
Another item for prayer - our faithful fellow-worker in India, Ananda Rao, from Andhra Pradesh, commences a trip to N. India, visiting and encouraging our Telugu missionaries in the remote areas of Darjeeling, Bhutan and Manipur. He will visit four workers and carry gifts from the saints here and in Andhra. Westerners are not permitted in these sensitive, mainly tribal, areas. Please pray for a safe journey.
We have been encouraged recently, in view of physical frailty and in terms of not losing heart, by applying Paul's exhortation and assurance that there is a counterbalancing spiritual renewal also in progress too. This is how he expressed it:
"For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2nd Corinthians 4. 16 - 18.)
