Rasoa is tired. She tossed and turned all night and could not sleep. She shares her thin mat of straw and raffia with her mother and two younger sisters.
Sleeping on the floor takes up more than half of the brick house, which has neither windows nor a proper door. Groaning, Rasoa rises and leaves the room.
Normally Rasoa would go to the market, but she doesn’t have enough strength. When was the last time Rasoa had felt full of energy? It had been a few months. Maybe when she was at the festival in one of the neighbouring villages? At the festival, she had met Olivier. He had turned her head – and then robbed her of any chance of a promising future when he left her only a short time later after learning of her condition.
So now Rasoa was alone – inside her was the child of a man who had taken advantage of her. Rasoa felt alone and hopeless, nine months after that evening that had started so beautifully.
In the early afternoon, Rasoa had been lying down because she had a headache and felt nauseous. She first felt a tingling sensation in her hands that spread convulsively down her arms to her whole body. Her mother enters the room: Rasoa is writhing on the floor in pain and convulsions. She is confused and does not respond to her mother’s approach.
Marie is very worried about her daughter. She had already experienced a seizure once with a pregnant woman in her village. The woman died before her baby was born. Marie calls her neighbours for help, but no one knows how to stop Rasoa’s seizures. Three neighbours agree to take Rasoa to the nearest hospital together with Marie.
Marie only packs the bare essentials. With her neighbours, she lays the now semi-consicous Rasoa, on a large sheet. They carry the pregnant woman out of the village – always in a southerly direction, the hospital must be there somewhere; about two days’ walk away. They tire, but strangers help them with ox carts and motorbikes.
Eventually, Rasoa and her mother arrive at the hospital and are taken immediately to the maternity ward. The problem is immediately clear to the doctor: eclampsia. An emergency caesarean has to be performed – now!
Sometimes things go wrong. And sometimes things work out like clockwork. Today, the second is true: the surgeon is free and the operating room ready. Rasoa – more dead than alive – is brought there in a last-ditch attempt to save her life. Spinal anaesthesia, incision, and then…
Rasoa’s baby is not breathing and is completely pale when the surgeon pulls it out of her belly. The baby is immediately resuscitated and after anxious minutes it seems that she is temporarily stable. Weak but stable.
Not so Rasoa – she is struggling with the after-effects of eclampsia. In critical condition, she is transferred to the intensive care unit. Unconscious, dehydrated, seriously ill. Her mother keeps watch at her bedside and prays – what else could help Rasoa? For two days, the doctors and nurses fight for Rasoa’s life until things start to look up. The medication works and she gradually regains consciousness.
After five days, Rasoa is transferred from the intensive care unit to the maternity unit. Finally she can hold her daughter in her arms.
Rasoa and her daughter have just escaped with their lives. During the days in the hospital, she experiences what it means to be loved and accepted by Jesus through the work and stories of the staff. From her arrival, the hospital evangelists were by her side to encourage her and speak to her of the gospel. And having listened to the message of God’s love in sending Jesus as her Saviour, she has trusted in the Lord Jesus and found salvation in Him.
This is a story – but it has been created from real women’s lives. The Good News Hospital in Mandritsara sees cases like Rasoa just about every week. Here you have a snapshot of life in rural Madagascar and the way that Christ’s love is being shared in deed and word.
For many women in Mandritsara, the experience of bringing a new life into the world … is an experience of devastation, of pain, of suffering, and maybe even of death. Madagascar’s infant and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world. For every 1,000 babies born, about 24 will not survive birth – a rate nine times higher than that in the UK.
Almost 800 babies are born at the Good News Hospital every year, and that number continues to grow. The hospital has the only well-equipped maternity unit within a radius of 200 kilometres. For many women and children, the Good News Hospital is the last, and only, hope for survival and a future. And a place where spiritual rebirth can be gently and attractively explained.
Exciting plans are afoot for a new maternity unit. Many more woman and babies will be helped and will hear about Christ from the doctors, nurses and hospital evangelists. To find out more and to support this work see https://www.mandritsara.org.uk/maternity.
