"I thought I would die," Carmalita told NTM missionary Vicky Martin. "I was in labor night and day." But tiny Noralyn cried loudly at birth and had no breathing problems.
It was rice planting season, so four days later Carmalita left her husband in the field house to care for the baby and toddler Mark Paul while she helped the ladies plant the seedlings. At noon Carmalita returned.
Mark Paul was curled on his side, breathing easily in a contented sleep. Noralyn was cradled in a colorful blanket swing. It was wet.
"What's wrong with this child?" Carmalita thought as she bent over to pick up premature Noralyn. "She's so white and she's cold. Her fingernails look black!"
Carmalita pinched her baby to see if she would cry.
She didn't cry.
Carmalita tried to give her baby a drink of water.
She didn't drink.
She looked like death.
Although Carmalita did not know God, she begged Him to let her baby live. Almost immediately, Noralyn took a breath, then another, and another.
But Carmalita knew she needed help. Off she went along the mountain trail thinking, "My baby will live because you are here, Vicky."
But Noralyn stopped breathing shortly after arriving at the missionary's house. Vicky took the baby in her arms and began to give the "kiss of life."
"When you were blowing air into her lungs, I really had no hope," Carmalita said. "Noralyn would breathe a little, then stop. If you had stopped breathing for her she would have died. I felt like I wanted to die, too. She is my only daughter.
"When you gave her medicine and an injection I felt relieved. When Noralyn cried loudly that night I was encouraged."
For weeks Vicky worked with premature Noralyn. "I remembered seeing her so listless and I wondered if she had brain damage," Vicky recounted. "It was the Lord who helped me care for her."
Today, Noralyn is a healthy 8-year-old who has opportunity to hear Bible stories taught at the village school.
However, Carmalita's mother does not want to hear the Bible teaching. Could Noralyn be the one who God will use to change her mind?
Please pray for Vicky as she returns to the Isneg tribe in the Philippines later this year.
