Our first Remedy Mission has literally reached the corners of Iraq as we’ve sought to serve and save children from every part of the country.
In our hospital ward there are Arab, Turkmen, and Kurdish families spending their days together talking, crying, and simply listening to one another. If a mother has to leave the room, the other mothers in the room quickly take up the responsibility to look after their child as if it were their own.
Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen have a complicated and painful history but this week it’s becoming clear to so many that all three groups have so much in common, the biggest being their love for their children. It’s a love that’s driven each one of them to such great heights in order to find someone who could save their child.
Noor was exactly 40 days old when she became very sick. Her parents were concerned, like any parent would have been, and they took her to the doctor’s office. They took an echo and discovered she had a heart defect. They had the news confirmed by 4 other doctors in her city of Nasariyah but not one of them told her than Noor needed surgery. Noor’s mother said that the doctor’s never brought it up because they all know that finding someone who could operate on and save Noor’s life would be close to impossible.
Instead, they sent her away knowing that Noor would soon die.
Noor is now 3 months old and resting in her hospital bed after receiving the surgery that saved her life, all which the doctors in Nasiriyah thought would be “impossible.” Noor’s mother shared with me today,
“Since we first found out that Noor had a heart defect, we haven’t laughed. Now that she is better, we can laugh again.”
We love standing alongside you in bringing families together, tearing down racial divides, and restoring laughter to homes all over Iraq. We love recognizing the fact that we have a great deal in common with families on the other side of the world and we love the fact that right now, there is a family from Nasariyah that has a reason to laugh again.
|
All our money comes from you! You’ve had a major hand in accomplishing a remedy for the kids of Iraq. And you can do it again today by beginning to spread the word! If you like what we are doing this week through our Remedy Mission, please be sure to spread the word:
|
Remedy Missions are international pediatric heart surgery teams that we bring to Iraq to to perform lifesaving heart surgeries and develop the infrastructure for the future. If you’re on Twitter this week be sure to use the #Remedy or #RemedyMission hashtag to describe all the good news coming out of Iraq this week via @preemptivelove and @babyheart_org. If you’re on Facebook, “Share” this story with the button below.
Photos by Heber Vega.
