Jarretts Ministry

February 17, 2002

Dear Friends and Family:

Thank you for your prayers this week. I want to update you on how God has answered your prayers. We have had more new experiences this week. And perhaps we’ve seen a miracle or two. Time will answer any doubts about those particular events.

In the last letter I mentioned that we are out of a critical drug, Methotrexate; it is used for treatment of some cancer patients. The morning after our Sunday night prayer time with other missionaries, a missionary who didn’t attend the meeting gave me enough Methotrexate from his personal supply to treat one patient. He had read about the need in our letter. Our pharmacist had hoped to find some in Nairobi, but Gideon returned from Nairobi empty-handed. He showed remarkable perseverance, however, and on Tuesday, he called Kericho and found enough of the drug for six rounds of treatment. The treatments are every other week, but there are three and perhaps five patients who need it. Please pray that the regular supplier will be able to get the drug into the country once again.

I also talked about Peris and her need for treatment, perhaps including a hysterectomy. I was led to do a chest x-ray on her before recommending the surgery and found that she had a large tumor in the chest – a metastasis from the choriocarcinoma in the uterus. This made it clear to me that a hysterectomy would not be life saving – she would die just

February 10, 2002

Dear Friends and Family:

This is to be a short letter (>:; as I want to get it out soon enough for you to pray for one item most specifically. Our pharmacist, Gideon, is in Nairobi through tomorrow, and he will be trying to get some more Methotrexate for our young patients with placental cancer. He ordered the drug in two different forms, injection and tablets two weeks ago. None is apparently available through our regular supplier. This drug may be a lifesaver for these patients; they will probably die without it.

I mentioned earlier the rarity of this tumor. Fortunately, it sometimes responds to the one agent for chemotherapy that we have had available here. Grace got her first round two weeks ago and developed pneumonia during the “rest” week. I hospitalized her and was thrilled to see her respond to the Ampicillin drug very quickly. She was much improved after just 24 hours and I sent her home after 48. She will return tomorrow to begin round two. I only have one of the five days of therapy left. Decla is finishing her first round this weekend. Her infection following the hysterectomy had cleared completely with the doxycycline that I used to treat her. It’s really encouraging when these serious infections respond to the available first and second-generation antibiotics. [Seems like we’re on the fourth or fifth generation of Gorilla-cillin in the States].

Please pray that Gideon will find enough supply of drug to treat both of these

February 1, 2002

Dear Friends and Family:

Thanks for your prayers in the past week. It’s been a busy week with lots of things to share with you and little time to do so. Of course, the computer decided to be a little balky, but was whipped back into shape by Jeff Stanfield, the resident computer guru.

Prayer for Rachel Requested

Our most urgent personal prayer request is for Rachel. She suffered a grand mal seizure just after lunch on Thursday. She had had no difficulty since our first flight to Kenya in 1999 when she had a smaller seizure on the plane due to sleep deprivation. Previous to that she had some other small seizures in her sleep throughout the years. She has never needed medicine to prevent the attacks. This episode came out of the blue. She had just finished reading us a report about giraffes that she had written. [She had done a very nice job on it and was pleased with our applause.] Suddenly she fell off the chair and began the uncontrollable shaking so characteristic of a grand mal seizure. Her color wasn’t good, and it took nearly an hour for her to return to normal. Other than having a headache, a bump on her head, and generalized aching and nausea, she seemed to be okay. Today she has no lingering effects whatsoever. In fact, she participated in the Olympic games organized by a visitor.

We need wisdom to know if there is anything we need to do differently.