A Note From Ian's Father

Beloved praying family in Christ,

I want to share God's glory with all who were a part of His supernatural work for Ian Turnbull. I would appreciate if you would forward this to all you may have notified to share with us in prayer for Ian's life, so that we may rejoice together in what God has done. My apologies for the length, but we wanted you to understand the mighty, supernatural work God performed in a situation that is faced by missionaries in most of Africa and many other parts of the world.

I write today with inexpressibly humble appreciation to everyone who lovingly devoted themselves to prayer, and many with fasting, to our Great Physician, on behalf of our 12 year old son Ian. Many of you I may not know, and perhaps won't know until our faith becomes sight. I've heard so many stories about those who have been praying for Ian that it brings tears of gratitude for the beloved body of Christ that our God has built throughout the world, united by His mercy and the Holy Spirit that makes us one in our Savior Jesus' blessed name. At this point, in tears, I again can only say, "thank you," as we've repeatedly expressed to God in our prayers. I'm sure those of you who experienced God's hand of mercy in your prayers for Ian equally understand the unity of the Holy Spirit that has bound us together for encountering the glory of God through His ordained purpose with Ian.

Please allow me to introduce you to Ian and share his story so you can fully appreciate how God has used us, globally, in united prayer to reveal His healing purpose in Ian, to God's glory alone.

Ian has always been a bright, happy, respectful boy who is available to help in any way he can. If he sees someone trying to do something, he's the first to run up to assist and the last to leave. He likes knives, playing soccer, riding his bike and shooting his air-soft gun. He loves his younger brother and 3 older sisters, and when not doing school work is on some adventure with them or his friends. Our family of 7 has been blessed by his love throughout his life.

As missionaries in Mozambique, we live in a high malaria area, but do our best to avoid the disease through preventative use of artemisia, neem, repellants and bed-nets. None-the-less, it's difficult to avoid mosquitoes completely, and all the family has now had the parasite. We have malaria home tests, and have always caught it in the initial 24 hrs and began treatment with the most effective drugs. In every case, we have gone through the treatment course and come out fine. Ian was the one we thought wouldn't get malaria during our first term here.

On Monday Ian had the sniffles, but was his normal, active, happy self. This remained the same until Thursday. His congestion persisted and he was less active and tired, so we had him rest and monitored him. By 8 pm that evening his temperature went up (which is when the malaria home test functions best) so we tested him. It showed an immediate, strong positive for falciprium malaria, which we specifically test for as it can turn to the most deadly form of cerebral malaria. We immediately began treatment with co-artisutinate, a well-known combination therapy to treat malaria. We monitored Ian closely, bathing him to keep his temperature in check, while the malaria progressed normally, according to our previous experience. By Saturday afternoon, Ian's fever ended, and we assumed he would soon recover; a seemingly simple case of malaria. It was sometime after this that things took an unusual turn, and kept us in prayer for wisdom in treating him.

He continued to vomit and we noticed a small amount of dark flakes at one point. Eventually, during the early hours of the following day, after another dark, liquid vomit we realized it was digested blood in his vomit and prepared to take him to the nearby clinic. He began hallucinating, so we called our friend, missionary-surgeon Dr. Charles Woodrow, who suggested getting him to the first-class medical clinic in our city, Nampula, Mozambique. Charles met us there and he and the Mozambican doctor, Dr. Agustino, agreed on a course of treatment including a quinine drip. Unfortunately, Ian continued a downward spiral into a comatose state and vomited large quantities of digested blood two more times before the doctor realized this was a much more serious case than he had ever treated. He agreed it was time to consider an emergency evacuation and by 5 pm, Sunday evening, Ken was trying to arrange a jet ambulance to Johannesburg, South Africa with the help of MAF pilot, Dave LePoidevan. It was 12 hours later before the plane was to arrive at Nampula, and that being greatly facilitated by the amazing cooperation of more people than could be named. During that 12 hours, Ken and Lisa, Ian's parents, were at his side praying and doing all they could to help, anticipating that God would call him home at any moment as he tossed and screamed in apparent agony. As SMS messages were being sent out to numerous Mozambican pastors by the Turnbull's mission director, DJ Morrison, Ken was receiving responses from these pastors assuring them of their prayers. Suddenly, Ian's downward spiral reversed and Ian quieted, appearing to recover sufficient strength to continue his fight against the malaria ravaging his red blood cells and clogging his circulatory system and organs with the resulting debris sludge. The despair turned to hope as the jet ambulance was on its way. God's first response to the wave of prayers from His faithful Mozambican prayer warriors and missionaries sustained Ian's life.

After the medi-vac doctor and nurse arrived with all of their state-of-the-art equipment, feeling to us that the calvary had arrived, they immediately stabilized Ian, bringing his critically low blood pressure up from 70/30 to 80/40 by pumping him full of i.v. fluids. They also needed to put a tube down into his stomach to prevent him from choking on any vomit that may occur during the flight. Once stabilized, Ian and his Dad were taken to the awaiting doctor and nurses of the pediatric ICU in Johannesburg, where they arrived 3 hours later.

Once there, the ICU doctor began injecting more fluids into the i.v. lines to raise Ian's blood pressure. Ian also appeared yellow upon arrival due to the amount of dead blood cells clogging his liver. His kidneys were also being critically overworked. The doctor had confidence in the course that the malaria would take because he had seen similar cases, so Ken passed the positive prognosis back to his family at home, although Ian looked near death from his perspective. After two stressful days at their home, Lisa flew down as well. The doctor began to give her the run down on how things were progressing.

Many of you have gone to the doctor for results, and after a certain word, your brain does not register any more of what the doctor says. That is what happened as the doctor said "severe hypotensive brain damage" (brain damage from extended periods of below critically low blood pressures). He said that they had taken him off the sedative, so now we will have to wait and see. Ian was a bright yellow at this point and very swollen. He had tubes coming from every part of his body.

The next morning, Wednesday, he still was not awake. When the doctor made his rounds, we asked again about the possibilities of brain damage. He explained that with a child you have only one hour (the platinum hour) where the blood pressure can be below the critical line without having brain damage. We asked him to look at Ian's records from Nampula and the medi-vac. We could see his face change gravely as he calculated Ian's mean blood pressure during that 24 hour period. At least half of that time, it was below that critical bp limit. We realized with the doctor that multiple hours well below that critical limit left little hope of anything less than severe brain damage.

It was at this time that we sent out an urgent prayer request for Ian. The prayer request apparently was spread around the globe in this wondrous electronic age of instant communication, and unknown thousands of faithful believers responded, showering the throne of God with pleas for Ian's healing! The doctor did not return later in the day as had been his habit. He later admitted that he was depressed at what he anticipated would be Ian's certain outcome.

We returned to our room and intently looked unto Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. We sobbed before the Lord, praying, weeping, reading of His promises and assurances in the Word, and sobbed, prayed and sang more. The Lord brought us through the night, especially standing on Jesus' promise in John 14:12-14 to the point of confidence that God's will would be accomplished, no matter what the outcome, because we "believed the LORD" (Genesis 15:6), not the circumstances we were thrown into, and He would remain faithful and true, never-changing regardless how the circumstances turned out. We prayed again before heading down to the ICU that Thursday morning. As we entered the ICU, the three nurses surrounding Ian's bed were very busy and called to us to come quickly! We ran in to find his eyes open and him struggling to rip out the breathing tube. The nurses were struggling to restrain him. We immediately began sobbing for joy that he showed signs of life, our tears of joy dripping on his face as we hugged and kissed him. I'm sure he couldn't figure out what was happening. They soon removed his breathing tube and we saw he could move, breath, and hear on his own. Due to the breathing tube being down his throat for 4 days he could not speak, but he was able to answer our questions with a shake of his head! Soon the doctor arrived and he could not believe his eyes. He came in and out of the room three times, each time his face moving from an initial look of concern to an ear-to-ear smile before staying, shifting into "doctor mode" and explaining what we could now expect. Ian was very tired, only staying awake for 5 min intervals, and then he would sleep for a few hours. But he was back from the dead from our perspective!

Ian continued to show signs of improvement as the prayers continued. As news of his miraculous recovery was spreading, we began hearing testimonies of the thousands who were praying and the effect of God's work impacting many people's lives. The next day when the doctor came by, we asked him how does he explain Ian's recovery after the clearly recorded critically low blood pressures for so many hours, seemingly without brain damage (now physiologically confirmed). He said he didn't know. We said it was due to God's response to prayer. He said, "Maybe!"

The following day we heard the doctor outside Ian's room quizzing one of the nurses, who had recently passed school exams, about the effects of prolonged hypotension. He had the nurse calculate Ian's critical mean blood pressure; he asked him how long he could be expected to remain below that limit before sustaining serious brain damage or death; he then had the nurse calculate Ian's mean blood pressure throughout his records from before arriving in the ICU. After asking the nurse what he could expect for the patient, he affirmed to the nurse that the patient shouldn't be there in bed recovering.

However, our God is above the natural, and clearly did a supernatural work. Everyday there were new improvements. It was like Ian was physically born again. He was needing to learn how to use his muscles and coordination. We were excited about every new thing he could do. His siblings are now on there way here so we can be together after we saw him respond so well while listening and trying to talk to them on the phone, realizing his recovery would be greatly facilitated by our family being united around him again. We were continually praising the Lord for this miracle that we were seeing advance before us with each passing moment. He has had many tests, and they are all showing that he did not sustain any brain damage. Monday he will go to see a neuropsychologist to check his deeper cognitive brain function.

As for Ian, the last thing he remembers is Ken carrying him out of our house to the car to go to the clinic in Nampula. The first that he remembers is the Saturday after the Thursday he woke up; one week of lost memory where God revealed Himself to so many of us through His work in Ian. He is still a bit weak and thin, but he is getting stronger everyday. We are thankful that he does not remember the pain that his body was going through.

We recount this story so that you can share with us in exalting and praising our God, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Healer, for calling us all together in unity around the miraculous work He desired us to be a part of so that His glory might be seen, proclaimed and purposed to encourage us together in faith.

"For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever." (Psalm 86:10-12)

To the Glory of God alone,

Ken & Lisa Turnbull, on behalf of Damarise, Hannah, Sarah, Ian and Andrew as well

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