I just got a call from a friend in the village with more bad news. But first, let me give you a bit of background.
A family from a distant camp called Mbang came to Mayos a few weeks ago for the death celebration of an elderly relative. During their time here, the two youngest children fell ill with a virus that has been making its rounds in Mayos. The older one required antibiotics for a secondary infection, but the youngest only needed fever reducer at that time. Yesterday, a week after I first treated the children, the mother brought the youngest child, named Motɛ (Mow-Tay) with symptoms of severe respiratory distress. She had pneumonia, and had been quite ill for two days already. Others in the camp had told the parents to bring her for medicine, but they chose traditional medicine instead. This involved making small cuts in the baby's skin, sucking the bad magic out and applying a poultice of crushed leaves. Cords are then tied around key areas of the child's body for protection. It didn't work.
When little Motɛ arrived, she was already quite compromised and looked as if she could die at any moment. I did what I could medically, prayed and waited to see if she would improve or get worse. There was no improvement, but she didn't seem to be getting worse just yet. I checked on her throughout the day and gave her more medication in the evening, instructing the mother to stay put so that I can keep an eye on her and continue giving the necessary medications. But, early in the morning, while it was still quite dark, the father arrived and took mom and baby from their bed. They bundled up the child and walked the three kilometers back to Mayos in the dark on a road recently muddied from a hard rain.
I awoke this morning to find them gone. The story that I heard regarding the reason for their return to Mayos was as follows. "The father thinks the baby is sick because they stayed in Mayos too long. If they had not come here, she would not have been sick. They tried to remove the bad magic, but it didn't work, so they tried white man's medicine. They want to return to Mbang. They will stop here for another injection in the morning on their way back to their camp."
When I first arrived in Cameroon, I would have taken those words at face value and been quite confused about how a prolonged stay in a different camp could make a child sick. I would have been frustrated that they waited so long to come for help when it was obvious that the child would die if they didn't do anything. I still get confused and frustrated, but for different reasons now. You see, the Baka, like many people in this world, are enslaved to the father of lies. They believe that, in order to avoid catastrophy, they must appease the spirits. If they offend the spirits, they have to somehow make it right. If someone dies, that person's spirit can stick around and cause problems for others, including sickness and more death. Their lives are filled with animistic practices designed to restore a good relationship with the spiritual forces at work in their lives. The problem is that they can never appease the spirits. The father of lies doesn't want a right relationship. He only wants to rule and ruin their lives.
Satan's lies are the reason why this family spent precious time trying to remove bad magic. Satan's lies told them that the child got sick because she stayed too long in Mayos, where evil spirits could invade her body. Satan blinded them to the fact that the virus that infected their children and the subsequent secondary bacterial infections were things that nearly everyone has been suffering from in Mayos, and that they were treatable with modern medicine and prayer.
Don't get me wrong. I am not blind to sin's role in this whole affair. I believe that the family had a responsibility to care for their child. I believe that they have the capacity to accept the truth and do what is right for her. I believe that they neglected her. I believe that their sin of irresponsibility and neglect contributed to her sickness.
The call I got a few minutes ago was to inform me that little Motɛ Eveline had died.
Pray with me for freedom from this bondage of lies. Please pray for Motɛ's parents. Pray for their other children, especially in this time of mourning. Pray that this family would encounter the Author of Truth. Pray that they would find harmony with God by accepting the shed blood of the Truth Giver as payment for their sin. Pray that their lives would explode with truth, spreading it among everyone with whom they come in contact.
